By Shaun Casey

FROM struggling to field in 2021 to being dark horses for the Junior Championship, it’s been a massive turnaround in the space of 12 months for Lissummon. They finished third in Division 3A, beating champions Derrynoose, and just began their championship campaign with a 10-point win over Division 3B winners Killeavy IIs.

The club is set for its 50th anniversary this year, and manager Seamus Loughran, enjoying his first year in charge, is delighted to get over the first hurdle.

“Lissummon struggled last year even to field teams in games but this year we’ve got a group of players who work hard, they work hard at their game and hard at training so you can’t ask for any more than that.

“It’s 50 years since Lissummon formed a team and last year they struggled and at one stage they thought they were going to have to go out of football but thank God we’ve got a group of players together that are very dedicated and a very dedicated committee there too.

“I’m just glad for Lissummon that we’re getting these results and at least it keeps the club up and running and keeps good spirits in the club,” said Loughran.

Lissummon were always in control of Sunday’s round-one tie and a ten-minute spell at the start of the second half, where they conceded a sloppy goal, are cause for concern as they begin to prepare for their quarter-final clash with Thomas Davis.

“Generally, we’ve been doing that all year, a poor first ten minutes to the second half and we just couldn’t get a grip of the game,” admitted Loughran. “We let them get a goal and put ourselves under a bit of pressure, but we’ve done this all year, we’ve responded when other teams have come back at us, we’ve responded well.

“We’re just delighted to get into the next round of the championship and that’s what we aimed for. We’re just taking it game by game and we’ll see where it takes us, Thomas Davis is the next step for us.

“Hopefully we’ve two or three lads to get back from injury and suspension so that’ll probably strengthen us a wee bit too so we’re looking forward to it, that’s all we can do is look forward to the next round.

“We’re going in as favourites to this game so that’ll bring a wee bit of pressure on to us as well. Killeavy won the Division 3B title last week, so it gave them confidence coming in today but we’re happy with our performance.

“There’s plenty to work on, there always is, that’s what managers are for. You always find more faults than you find good things so that’s what managers do. I’ll find the faults, but you have to give them a wee bit of credit too.

“They do work hard, and we have to look at the level of football and where we are, we’re a small club and winning today is good for the club.”