Buckley geared up for new season

Sporting Fingal manager Liam Buckley today spoke of his team’s preparation ahead of Sporting’s opening League of Ireland first Division clash away at Waterford.

Fingal have been made heavy favourites for the upcoming season, with some bookies marking them as short as 8/13 for the title.

“It is a strong squad, there’s no two ways about it. We were given a budget to go out and get the best possible group of players we could in; I think we’ve done that,” said Buckley from the squads new training set-up at ALSAA.

“Last season’s preseason was a nightmare. We had been planning for the ‘A’ championship and signed one or two non-league players – Dinny Corcoran for example was an under 20’s player and played amateur for half the season – I won’t go through that squad but I thought they all applied themselves as best they could. I thought we did well bearing in mind the circumstances that we had, we were only given about a months notice to get the fit and organised. But from my point of view we were quite a bit off. So we should be better this year.”

Sporting have assembled a much changed - and expensive- squad this season with many players dropping down from the Premier Division to help the drive for promotion. The likes of Gary O’Neill, Steven Paisley, Alan Kirby and Eamon Zayed have all taken the step down in leagues, and Buckley emphasised the effort put in behind the scenes to attract players of such high a standard.

“I’ve been speaking to them [the new players] since last November, trying to get these players in. It’s the bigger picture that the new players have looked at. When you look at Steven Paisley and Eamon Zayed, they could potentially do a Masters Degree while they’re with us. That’s one of the reasons players like that would have looked at our plans in a different light. Also the training facilities we have here in the ALSAA club are very good. We have physios in from Trinity College to help out too. If you look at St Pats and Drogheda and the unfortunate situation that they’re going through, [those players] had to get picked up somewhere. Now we haven’t gone bananas on money and all that sort of stuff, we just made the right pitch. I think it’s the scale of the whole thing.”

The structure in place at Sporting is as impressive as it is promoted. The links with colleges, schoolboy leagues and sports facilities are ways to attract players, and indeed fans to the Sporting Fingal brand, heading into only its second season in existence:

“If we have a better team we will get more people in to watch us. But equally we would like to involve local schools. We have Conan Byrne who’s been out there all year doing that. The likes of the NDSL (National Dublin Schoolboy League), all those kids doing that will have a pass to get into our games because they’re the kids we want to come through and play for our Under20’s and eventually have a professional contract to play with ourselves. Also the link-up with DCU and Blanchardstown IT as well is an attraction from a player point of view” said Buckley.

Many bookies, along with this website, see promotion as a must for Sporting, given their squad, facilities and financial clout; however noone at the club is getting carried away. Buckley was quick to note other promotion candidates whom his side must pay attention to:

“Waterford have brought in four or five players from Cobh - Michael Devine from Cork - so they won’t be being easily turned over. Dermot Keely down the road (Shelbourne), they’ve signed a few: Last year’s Player of the Year David Cassidy; Peter Hynes from us; Ritchie Baker, these are all good guys so they’ll be competitive as well.

“Monaghan made a few good signings. They turned us over last season [corrected by Club Secretary John O’Brien to being turned over twice] they’ve made a few good signings. Finn Harps still have their local group there, they might have lost one or two but the base is still there. They’ll be tough. But If we get our organisation right, we will be tough to beat.”

“People need to be motivated in the Premier Division or the First Division. If they’re not motivated, then they certainly will be if they’re put on the bench. We have set a bar and I think all of the lads will appreciate that it has to be done right. There is no doubt that if they look across from the project there will be reasonable comparisons with St Pats’ and that from a training and fitness point of view.

“I I’d like to think our team will play a particularly attractive brand of football this season. I think the bulk of these guys would like to think they are Premier Division players and would like to be back up there as quick as possible. Last year I was hoping we’d be competitive, because we were signing players from all over the place. This year I know we’ll be competitive,” added Buckley.