Cup Magic!

Its magic time once more, the quest for the ‘holy grail’ of Irish league footballers, the Irish cup, begins this weekend. What will the next five games have in store we wonder? Will we even get a couple of games, as knowing Kilmore Rec, (as we do only too well), Saturday’s result is no easy thing to predict. Last season we had probably the easiest run that we’ve ever had in the competition and still ended up with noting. So having home draws and no hard games is no guarantee of success, as at the end of the day, you still need to score goals. Scoring goals has been our problem all season and we’ve also had a bad habit of letting in quite a few too. We have managed to tighten things up a bit defensively over the last few weeks, but scoring goals is as difficult as ever. We have tried various formations in an attempt to change this unenviable record, but still the goals refuse to flow. The United manager has gone on record as saying he still needs and seeks a striker, but has drawn a blank so far. Personally I think a goal scoring midfielder wouldn’t be a bad thing either, as we’re definitely missing out in that department. A lot of work (again) in my opinion, has to be done on free kicks, corner kicks and throw-ins, as there never seems to any tactics used by us in these situations. Oh for the days when wee Dessie Loughery was taking long throw-ins and we put opposition defences under real pressure. Or going back even farther when Brian Jess took corner kicks, or to go back really far, Norman Clarke’s free kicks! Will we ever see set pieces like these again I wonder? Probably not I think is the short answer, as these players had loads of talent and that’s something which is in rather short supply at present. Not only in our team I hasten to add, but in the Irish league in general. How many times have we witnessed visiting teams attempt to blast free kicks over our defensive wall this season? It must be averaging about two kicks a game and I can’t remember our keeper having a worthwhile save to make yet. But I believe this is a loophole which we have to unloop and maybe just maybe, if we can start scoring from set pieces we can start to improve our goals for ratio. Surely it’s worth a try, what have we got to lose? The old saying goes that it’s much better to ‘have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all’. Well I say much better to have worked on our set pieces than not have tried at all, at least then we’ll have given it our best shot!