Ciaran McManus hopes the years of decline are over for St Pat’s after the club decided to start from scratch again in Division 2C.
The 38-year-old was part of the side which swapped the Belfast & District for the Amateur League more than a decade ago, and has 2B, 2A, 1C and 1B winner’s medals to show for his efforts, before things started to go pear-shaped for the club in the 2017/18 season.
That year, they finished bottom of the pile in 1A, and though granted a relegation reprieve, they found themselves propping up the division once again 12 months later with just seven points from 24 league games.
That prompted some soul-searching at the club, with the decision eventually taken to hit reset and drop down into 2A for the Covid-hit 2019/20 campaign.
But the quality and competitiveness of the Junior bloc’s top tier is arguably the equal of that in 1C and 1B, and once again, St Pat’s found themselves floundering, hence their move further down to the basement division.
“2A is about competing and trying to take that next step (into Intermediate football) and we just weren’t at that place as a club,” explained McManus.
“We thought 2C would be the best option to regroup and start from there, get a few wins and getting the winning mentality back.”
It’s been a mixed bag for St Pat’s so far, with two wins, two defeats and a draw in their new surroundings.
And it was a mixed bag for Sean-Paul McBride on Saturday as his treble helped inspire a 7-1 drubbing of Rooftop, before the hat-trick hero himself saw red.
Looking ahead, McManus believes the squad he has now is more than capable of competing in 2C -- and possibly even contending.
“Like most clubs, with Covid, you don’t know what sort of squad you’re going to have at the end of the week, we haven’t had the same squad two weeks in a row, but with the squad we have there, I have no doubt we’ll do well this year,” he said.
“We want to finish as high as we can in the league, if not challenge to win it. Anything outside the top three would be a disaster in my eyes. With the players we have, we should be challenging. We haven’t got off to the best of starts but I think we’ll come good in the end.”
