Lacey has no fears Kilcoo have already shown hand
Karl Lacey says his players won't get diverted by talk that the narrow nature of Errigal Ciaran's semi-final triumph could be to the Tyrone champions' advantage
- Published
Kilcoo boss Karl Lacey has no fear that his side may have peaked too early or shown their hand in the semi-final demolition of Scotstown as they approach Sunday's Ulster Club Football Final against Errigal Ciaran.
A Scotstown side replete with Monaghan county stars past and present defeated Kilcoo by a point in last year's Ulster quarter-final and no one predicted the 2022 All-Ireland champions' 5-10 to 0-14 victory margin a fortnight ago.
In contrast, Errigal Ciaran needed a stunning individual display by Ruairi Canavan to edge a 0-14 to 1-10 semi-final win over a Clann Eireann side that had looked to be taking control prior to Tiernan Kelly's 40th-minute sending off.
History shows that many unimpressive semi-final wins are followed by final triumphs, but former Donegal All-Star Lacey doesn't buy in to that kind of media chatter.
"It's probably irrelevant to us as a group. As a player you hide yourself away from all that," Lacey told BBC Sport NI.
"I’m not just saying that. It is reality. Players don’t need management to put their feet back on the ground. They do that themselves. After the final whistle, we regrouped. We got our huddle, we had our stretch. We had our wee talk.
"By the time the boys got home, that game was blanked and they were looking forward to the next one and ready to go again. That’s just the reality of it."
Devlin battling to be fit
Kilcoo plundered their five goals against Scotstown despite being without regular free-taker Paul Devlin because of a calf injury.
Lacey says Devlin has been "doing everything he can to be and we'll give him every opportunity for him to be fit and ready for the final".
The Kilcoo boss doesn't believe it was the particular sight of Scotstown jerseys that stirred his team to produce their five-goal display two weeks ago after they had been shocked by the Monaghan champions 12 months ago.
"It wasn’t about the Scotstown thing. It was parked. It was more about our performance and how we performed going down the home straight that night.
"It’s something we reflected on at the end of the year and going into this year, we looked to try to put those things right and we’ve worked hard on those things.
"That was probably the most pleasing thing that we were able to go into that game and deliver some of those things that we’ve worked on really hard this year."
The Canavan brothers Ruairi (left) and Darragh (right) hit 0-9 and 0-2 against Clann Eireann in the provincial semi-final with cousin Thomas notching 0-2 and Odhran Robinson Errigal Ciaran's only other scorer
But with Kilcoo now set to face an Errigal Ciaran side spearheaded by the two in-form Canavan brothers Ruairi and Darragh, Lacey insists that his players "re-set fairly quick".
"Our heads are down again and we know our preparation has to be really, really high going into this final against Errigal Ciaran who are a well-coached, well-drilled, high experience with some really good individual players. Our preparations need to be the best," added Lacey.
With understatement, Lacey describes the Canavan brothers as "very good individual players but also good team plyers who are able to bring other players into it as well".
But Errigal Ciaran's semi-final win was very much the case of the Canavan show as Ruairi hit a sensational nine points as Darragh and cousin Thomas both contributed 0-2 with Odhran Robinson the only other scorer for the Tyrone champions.