Owen Forsyth thinks it’s a spark of hope for Deriah’s title race, but admits he will likely end the season with a creepy sense of what could have been.
Seymour Hill’s men have already won the prestigious Frontier Cup, of course – for the first club – so whatever happens during the remainder of the campaign, the 2021/22 season will be considered a success.
Even looking at his captain, top scorer and key player Jack Smith, who was picked by Portadown for Christmas and hit by Jordan Baker, he knows that in this costly league of 5 draws, he could have scored more points than he got. He or she won the match often.
In fact, turning one or two of them into a win would put Derya in the title race more squarely than on the sidelines.
Forsyth’s team can still enforce delays.
But while that’s by no means impossible, he knows May’s coronation is more promising than expected.
“Because of the loss of our top scorers, we are struggling to cross the finish line in matches,” the Derya coach explained. “We finished many matches with a draw.
But overall it was great and I don’t think we’re that far away, it’s just that we’re a little rough, the only thing that happens to us.
“For us, one or the other, if Jack or Jordan had been in good shape all season, I think it would have made a huge difference.
We can’t really replace these players, especially in the amateur league, with rules like this.
Becker was back on the court on Saturday to support Deriahi in the race, but it was Ethan Taggart and Scott Dornan who suffered a hamstring win over Shankel United ahead of this weekend’s rematch ahead of the rematch. The second part has two parts.
A seven-match league match starts. Win them all and they might confuse the odds.
On the other hand, for Forsyth, Rathfreeland, the team that has played twice in the remaining two months of the tournament, has the upper hand.
“We still have outside capabilities, but now we have to rely on everyone around us, but if we win the rest of our matches, we will have every chance,” he said.
But it will be difficult to do so. We beat Rathfreeland twice and I think they are favorites for the league, but their match backlog will lead to problems for them.
“I consider them the favourites, out of all the teams we’ve played against, probably the best team I’ve ever seen.
We only played them once in the cup final, but we’ve seen them twice before and they made a great impression on us.
“But this has to be done, I think, Immaculate, Ard’s Rangers, me and of course Star, East, Rathfreeland… Whoever arranges the miles, it will be hard to stop.
“We have to rely on a lot of luck, which we didn’t want, but yeah, if we win most of it, we’ll be pretty close.
“But it’s a great request, especially for the season, very competitive and integrated.”
Source: Belfastlive
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