Derry hurlers welcome Roscommon to Lavey

Allianz Hurling League Roinn 2B   |   Derry vs. Roscommon   |   Lavey   |   Sunday, 1pm

With a place in the league final already secure, it is now all about momentum and the depth of his squad for Derry manager Johnny McGarvey.

With three wins and a draw already on the board, there is plenty to be happy about for McGarvey with his aims of securing a place not only in the league final, but guaranteeing a place in the revamped Division 2 next year secured.

But there is still plenty to improve on for McGarvey, who watched his team hit 22 wides in their 0-18 apiece draw with struggling Wicklow on Sunday past. The Derry boss has spoken about his team’s inconsistency on more than one occasion, and it appeared again at the weekend.

“It was very frustrating,” he acknowledged. “Even away from the wides we didn't play very well against Wicklow. We came up the road just probably angry with ourselves and you know maybe a bit frustrated definitely as the game went on. I think frustration became a big part of it. I mean, 22 wides; we had plenty of opportunities, we just weren't taking them.

“Every time we got three or four ahead, we were conceding a soft free here and there and we just let them stay in touch so we're disappointed with the result on Sunday.”

Derry were strong favourites heading into the game with their form on contrast to their opponents, who were struggling at the foot of the division.

“It's very easy to look at it and say it's complacency after it happens but I mean there was nothing to suggest that there was complacency,” McGarvey reflected. “We trained really well and there were maybe six changes in the team. That maybe left us a wee bit disjointed but most of them were forced and we've a good panel of players there and we always said we wanted to look at them. The same will apply on Sunday coming; there's players we want to look at in that squad and thankfully we're in a position that we can do that.”

Roscommon come to Lavey this weekend hoping to follow in the footsteps of Wicklow, but McGarvey doesn’t expect to see a drop in performance that he did on Sunday.

“One thing I keep talking about is consistency,” McGarvey said. “If you want to go to the next level then you have to play consistently at the level that you believe you're at and we fell below that on Sunday.

“Every day you go out you have to be at it but on Sunday we weren't. I mean, look the reality is we still should have won the match. I think they had they had 24 shots and scored 18 points, while we had 46 shots and scored 18 points. We put it to bed and we move on.

“That point guarantees us a place in the league final so we can't be caught now. We're going to finish top of that group and have a home advantage in the league final anyway so at the end of the day in terms of the league standings the point's important but look our attention now goes to this week.”

Selection

With the league final secured, McGarvey has the option of looking at players with not as much game time to date, and that is something he is definitely considering, with plenty of time to get a full picture of what his squad has to offer.

“From a selection point of view, I don't think the thought process that I had before the Wicklow match really changes,” he explained.

Derry drew with Wicklow on Sunday past.

“I think there won't be wholesale changes but there will definitely be a few guys who played last week who deserve another run at it and we'll take it from there. After that we'll sit down and we'll pick a team between the 5 or 6 games that we play before the league final.”

In between times, he is hoping that his squad can find that consistency and perform at the levels he knows they are capable of.

“I think the players do that themselves and they find that level,” he stated. “We'll train them as hard as we possibly can and try and get our tactics right and all the rest but ultimately, we have a great group of players that's full of leaders and when it's not going well more often than not, they sort it out themselves. Nobody was more frustrated and disappointed after the match than when they were and they'll want to put it right.”

“It's probably a long time since we were in a wee run like we were on there, winning games on a consistent basis. It's not even the not winning, but not performing well would annoy us because that's the sort of thing that we were trying to really establish that we were putting it together over 70 minutes and as I say it just didn't happen for us the weekend.”