Galloway in the spotlight

Strangely enough its a first championship game of the season for title favourites Eglinton as they go to Burndennett and while the Villagers will be favourites to win against last year’s bottom team, the hosts look a lot stronger now.

We’re continuing with the theme of getting around the clubs this week though and taking up the challenge of previewing Saturday’s matches is Sion Mills man Simon Galloway.

The Tyrone side started the season on a winning note when seeing off Killyclooney in a low scoring game on opening day and then built on that with their thrilling win at Bangor but Galloway isn’t surprised by his side’s efforts. “We started gaining a bit of momentum at the back end of last year and we tried to channel that into our efforts this time.

“We won five out of our last seven league games with Ardmore and Drummond among the teams we beat so the club made a conscious decision to try to build on that over the winter.

“There is much more structure to our cricket these days; we have a solid committee, good fundraising means and practice is also better. Fair enough we met Killyclooney on a day when they were missing one or two players and the pitch was definitely drying out but we bowled superbly, Nigel O’Neill in particular was at his very best and we limited them to just 68 all out.

“Strangely enough we got the worst of the conditions as we batted but we had enough in the locker to see us over the line despite losing too many wickets for our liking.”

The Mill side have one or two players that they expect to be in the thick of the action throughout the summer and Simon insisted that bowler O’Neill was the type of cricketer that the rest would respond to. “Nigel lives in Ballina in County Mayo and comes up on match days to play. He didn’t have a ball in his hand before the Killyclooney game and doesn’t get to practice with the rest of the boys but he’s totally committed.

“Kevin Gallagher and Andy Lucas are two young men who have a future in the game as well and we’re expecting big runs from both of them this season when the pitches harden up.

“As a club we haven’t really set ourselves any goals but I wouldn’t be in the slightest bit surprised to see us challenging in the top half of the table this season. It would be nice to win a trophy obviously but we will judge our season on where we finish in the league.”

Turning to this weekend’s matches Simon felt that Sion’s trip to the Boathole on Saturday would tell the tale. “St Johnston had a really good win at Ardmore in the league and then went on to win the Charity Cup against Creevedonnell so they set a good standard.

“We’re certainly not afraid of going there but this should tell us how far we’ve come so far and that’s no bad thing.”

The other two games see Eglinton travel to Burndennett and Drummond host Ardmore so we put the Sion man on the spot to see what he thought about those. “Eglinton look really strong this season particularly with Stephen Smyth coming in,” he suggested. “Many people thought they were unfortunate to be relegated but you would have to think that anyone who finishes above them will win the league.

“Burndennett have improved themselves and that was some result for them at the weekend but the visitors look too strong.”

“Ardmore at Drummond is a repeat of last week’s cup match where the Bleachgreen team pulled off a big win but it will be difficult to do that twice in a row. Ardmore still rely pretty heavily on Adrian Murphy and he can hurt sides badly if he gets going.

“They weren’t as impressive against St Johnston in the league or in the National Cup on Saturday so if Drummond can get Murphy early they will fancy their chances.”