Adam Craig insists there's still 'a long way to go' despite Ballynahinch's fine start to All-Ireland League campaign
Ballynahinch sit top of All-Ireland League Division 1A with a third of the season completed, but Adam Craig thinks it is still too early to be reading much into league position.
After a bonus point win last week at Lansdowne, Craig’s side are a point ahead of St Mary’s and Clontarf and welcome struggling UCD to Ballymacarn Park on Saturday.
“To be honest it isn’t something that we talk about internally as a coaching or playing group,” said Craig. “There is a long way to go in the season and you don’t win anything in November and that is what we’ll stick to.
“The last two years we have finished fifth and last year we felt we narrowly missed out on the play-offs, so that has been the aim of this team for a couple of years now.
“There was a little bit of hurt that we didn’t get over the line last year so we are using that to drive us this year to the best spot that we can at the end of the season. The league table shows how tight it is this year – there is no team unbeaten and quite a few results have upset the bookies, but we have to stay focused on doing our job right against UCD.
“We know that they are a pretty good team that like to play fast. They have been on the other side of results and we have come out on the right side and they have had a couple of close losses.
“We have to focus on ourselves and make stuff we get our stuff right to come away with a win. We’re very happy. We have had a good start, maybe a wee bit slower than anticipated through Ulster League and pre-season, but we always knew the potential was there to kick on and we are starting to see that now.
“There has been a lot of player-driven stuff this year that seems to be paying off for us. That nucleus of players being together for a couple of years and the coaching team being together for a couple of years, we’re starting to the fruition of that.
“That has probably been one of the biggest things this year and one of the nicest things in coaching is to be able to hand over a wee bit more responsibility to the players because they understand the ideas that you want to put in place.”
Despite the five points in Dublin last week, Craig knows there is room for improvement.
“Just a wee bit better in our contact is a big thing,” he added. “We do a review every Tuesday and it was something we looked at in detail around our starter plays and then just trying to dominate collisions and put ourselves in the best place to defend.
“We want to hold onto the ball a wee bit more in attack then we did. We have been chasing that this week and the boys have responded well from getting a bit of a telling off from me!”
City of Armagh travel to Young Munster hoping to bounce back after last week’s defeat by Cork Con.
“We got ourselves in a good position at half-time but not to see it out and let in a couple of soft tries was a bit disappointing,” said coach Chris Parker. “Being nine points down with five minutes left we just could have rolled over and accepted defeat, but the boys dug in well and got the fourth try to give us two points.
"Every point is going to be precious this season.”
Joe Hopes makes his first appearance of the season as Queen’s host Old Belvedere in Division 1B.