Rossa boss focused on positives

Rossa's Michael Armstrong

Last weekend, O’Donovan Rossa became only the second team to take points off county champions St Gall’s. Such a result is unlikely to register with the Milltown Row club, who’ll still challenge for honours year despite that slip, but for their West Belfast neighbours Rossa, it has huge significance.

They are in their first year back in division one, but they’re struggling to avoid relegation at the minute as they are second from the bottom of division one with seven games left to play in the league.

At the time of writing, the score from their Wednesday night clash against Rasharkin was not known. Yet their run of recent results; a win against St John’s, a loss to Cargin and a draw with St Gall’s, suggest that Rossa’s season might be on the turn, at least that is what their manager Brian White hopes.

“The team that we put out against St John’s was as good as it was going to get. They had that bit of self belief. At one stage it was 1-10 to 0-2, though maybe we had a bit of naiveté and we allowed them back into the game [Rossa went on to win by 1-10 to 1-7],” said White.

“What we have to do is focus on those St Gall’s and St John’s games. We have to focus on the positives.”

The full story is in the current issue of Gaelic Life, published on Thursday July 5. Buy your copy now in your local newsagent, or you can purchase the online version – for only 90p – by clicking here