Aylward wary of Raharney banana-skin
November 07, 2008
Ballyhale Shamrocks boss Maurice Aylward insists that his side will be approaching next Sunday week's Leinster SHC semi-final with some caution when they come up against Raharney of Westmeath.
The Kilkenny champions scored a convincing win over Rathdowney/Errill (Laois) last Sunday at Nowlan Park, and Aylward believes his side have a great chance of progressing to the provincial decider as long as they can maintain their focus
"We have a good chance of making the final, but we must be careful," Aylward insisted. "We will respect Raharney, the way we respect everyone. The last week, and today we showed how serious we are taking this competition.
While it seemed a little bit of complacency did begin to creep in in the closing stages of the win over the Laois champions, Aylward admits that too many good hurlers in the team wanting the perfect result is more the issue
"I suppose when you are seven or eight points in front complacency might set in and you want to do things too nicely. The trouble is we have too many good hurlers.
"The bottom line is we won by seven points. We were happy with that. We have a good chance of getting into the final. The semi-final will be something of a banana-skin and we must be careful.
"In Ballyhale we love the hurling. It is hard to stop these lads hurling. If there wasn't a training session during the week some of them wouldn't know what to do. That is the way we are. They love the hurling, Henry, the Reids, the Fennellys, the Aylwards, the lot of them."
After their Kilkenny SHC triumph last month, two days of celebrations on the club's part was meet with Aylward's side getting straight back to work as they gun for provincial glory to go along with their county triumph in the coming weeks.
"It is that sort of attitude which makes a club, makes them a good team," he said. "People are not happy when this team wins by five or seven points. They expect 10,11 or 12. We scored 1-18 which is a good score in any match in the month of November."
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