Nicholl’s side ready for the off

UNBEATEN City of Derry start their AIL campaign this weekend when they take on University College Cork, at Judges Road, on Saturday (KO 2.30pm).

Under Mark Nicholl stewardship the Derry men have won their opening five Ulster League games, their last of which over Queens on Saturday, but Nicholl believes this weekend’s clash against the Students is going to be their toughest match so far this campaign.

“We are progressing nicely and we decided to use the Ulster League games to develop the squad and we have done that, by giving boys who maybe wouldn’t have got a chance before a run out and they have done very well,” he added.

“The AIL is a tough, tough league and we’ll be just taking one game at a time, we haven’t set ourselves any real goals or targets.

“Yes we want to obviously finish as high up the league as we can and I think on our day we are more than capable of beating most sides, if not all the sides

“I still see the Dublin sides doing well, they usually recruit quite well, but there is no real one side who I think will dominate the league this year, like Trinity did last year, so I feel everybody is capable of beating each other.

“It depends who is lucky with injuries and the form on the day.”

Nicholl also believes if they have any success this year it will all be down to the strength and depth of the squad.

“As I have said before I don’t like saying a Firsts and Seconds team, I instead would like to call it a good big First squad.

“There is a lot of boys developing nicely, so we are all looking forward to the start of the AIL season, on Saturday.

“It wouldn’t be easy trying to keep everyone happy, in fact I have had a few selection headaches already and I know this Saturday’s match will mean a bigger headache for me, but it’s up to the players to make sure that I have a selection headache.

“Each player who we have asked to come have stepped up to the mark and that is what we want, there’s no guarantees in this league and we aren’t building a team around any one player, it’s a squad at the end of the day and I’m sure and quite convinced that I will use every single player in the squad between now and the end of the season.”

Nicholl also admitted that a team meeting prior to the campaign starting was very positive.

“We had a good meeting at the start of the season and we asked the players what standard did they want to set and to a man they all wanted to set high standards for themselves. Now myself and Ashley (Blair) have told them that we would be picking the form players.

“If a player trains hard but if he starts to miss training then he’ll obviously not be available for selection, so it’s up to the players and it’s them who bring the best out of each other and that is what we are looking for.”

Having been Bevan Lynch’s assistant for a number of years, Nicholl was promoted into the hot-seat after the New Zealander left and it’s a case of so far so good for Nicholl.

“It has been exciting, but I have been very, very lucky to be working with a group of players who are prepared to work and the pleasing thing for me more than anything is that a lot of the players have stepped up to the mark.

“Anything I have asked them to do they have taken it on board.

“There hasn’t been a big amount of changes to training structures and things like that, we have just implanted our own wee plans and working hard on defence and things like that, but the players have been very, very good so far and it has been rewarding so far.”

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