Tricky opener for Nicholl’s men

It’s all change at Judges Road this season with Mark Nicholl stepping up into the hot-seat after Bevan Lynch’s departure and Richard McCarter knows he and his team-mates have a tough season ahead.

“Everyone has been looking forward to the start of the season for a while,” insisted McCarter.

“You enjoy your time off during the summer, but everyone loves when the games start again and now that we have had a couple of pre-season games it’s nice to start competitively this weekend.

“We have been improving the last few weeks and training has been going well.

“In our first game against Omagh it was a start for us and it was very, very scrappy and not great at times, but the coaches just asked us to improve not just at training but in matches and to go to Ballymena, who are in the league above us, and really out play them for a lot of the game, was a very, very good start.

“Yes there are still things we can improve on but we just hope that we can carry that form into this weekend’s game with Ards, who in recent years have been a wee bit of a bogey side to us.”

The 28-year-old is looking for City of Derry to start the season much better than his beloved Liverpool team did at the weekend.

“The fact that we start at home in front of our supporters it would be nice to get off to a good start, especially for Mark (Nicholl) and Ashley (Blair) the new coaches, it would be nice to repay them for the commitment which they have put in this summer.

Last season City of Derry’s form towards the end meant they missed out on promotion and the fly-half feels consistency will be the key for any success they have this season.

“We are an ambitious side and we know when we are good, we are good and its just about being more consistent this year,” he added.

“We’ll certainly set our standards high and see where it take us but we feel we are good enough to get promoted but as I have said we lack a bit of consistency at times but hopefully we can iron out those wee cracks and really have a proper push for it this season.”

New additions David Ferguson, Stephen Emerson, Ross Scott, James Facwett, Tom Patton and Jack Caithness are all in line to make their debuts on Saturday.

Supporters are also reminded that the annual George Tees Cup also takes place on Saturday.

All the action gets underway at 12.30pm.