Cassidy Remains Positive

It was encouraging to read Damian Cassidy in yesterday's Irish News speaking frankly and positively about his future with Derry. No doubt there are some elements within the county who have the knives out (having started sharpening them last October), but Cassidy appears determined to carry out the job he has undertaken with the Oak Leafers:

"I am still coming to terms with getting beaten in the Championship. And, to be frank, as a manager I’m not that accustomed to that. But you can do one of two things. You can either back away from it, or it either fuels you up and makes you more determined. At the minute, it’s the latter one that applies."

He will have learned much from his debut season as an inter-county manager, and has already pin-pointed where Derry's failings have come this season:

"When we became more offensive in the last two matches we conceded a lot. We have to find the balance between defending adequately and scoring enough to get results. That’s something that needs to be worked on."

How he goes about rectifying these problems will be his biggest job, but it looks like he has identified the introduction of new players to the squad as one of his priorities:

"The overall feeling is that there must be younger players brought into the squad to allow the team to become a serious Championship contender. It’s clear that we need to look at younger players to strengthen the mobility of the team and the scoring ability of the team."

We in Derry may sometimes be guilty of getting carried away with the amount of talent we think we have at our disposal, but here are six players who have appeared regularly enough for the Oak Leafers in recent seasons, but didn't feature in the squad to play Donegal last Saturday night: Kevin McGuckin, Niall McCusker, Michael McGoldrick, Liam Hinphey, Joe O'Kane, Paul Cartin.

That's a full defence, and the availability of any one of these players would have siginificantly strenghthened a defensive line-up that has been seriously exposed in recent games.

This case in point is an illustration of the strength in depth available within Derry and - without meaning to do an ostrich impression - I believe that finding new players may not need to be Cassidy's first priority. Instead, getting them to adapt to different positions when necessary - in order to cater for differing types of opposition - may be a start in helping us finally deliver the goods at the business-end of the season.