Holm men aim for league success

The Holm men finished third and a massive eight points behind joint winners Strabane and Limavady, but this term McGonigle believes there will be a more serious title assault.

“It was a strange season last year because I was just looking at the league table last week and we lost seven games, but quite a few of them were towards the end of the season whenever we sort of knew the league had drifted away from us,” he said.

“However we had the added bonus of already having won the Northern Bank Senior Cup and still had the final of the Bob Kerr Irish Senior Cup in May, so that sort of kept our season going, but as far as the league was concerned it was disappointing and we’ll be looking to make amends this season.”

McGonigle also feels that last year’s surprise packages Strabane and Bready may find life a little bit more difficult this year as they have both lost players.

“The league is the one competition which our yard stick is measured and the most consistent team over the season wins the league and we’ll be looking to improve on that, but I feel we’ll have a better chance because although everyone knows that Brigade have strengthened up to a big degree, but a lot of other teams who were up there or there about’s last year have lost a few players.

“We have lost Stephen Dunn but Strabane have been hit as have Bready, as I always thought they would have at some part, so this year it might be back to the usual two or three sides up their challenging.

“Although we have lost Stephen and we’ll be a wee bit light on the bowling attack, but we have two boys Graham Boyd and Dale Olphert who we haven’t really used in the bowling stakes because we haven’t never really needed to, but this could be their year to maybe shine through and come up trumps for us.”