By Aaron Doyle

AT last Wednesday’s launch of the new Carlow & District League season in the Seven Oaks, the new men’s and women’s interleague coaching teams were announced.
Following on from last season’s success which saw the team lift the LFA Angela Hearst Cup, the women’s team have lost their manager Kevin McLaughlin. He will be replaced by last season’s head coach Pat Dowling and the head coach position will be held by Joe Sunderland. The Angela Hearst Cup has now become a national competition and both members of the coaching team are looking forward to the new challenge.

Pat Dowling and Joe Sunderland take over the reins with the Carlow women’s interleague team for the coming season

“It’s exciting times because it’s a new competition, a new chapter and a different challenge. The players are up for it, we’re up for it. We’ll see where it goes,” said Dowling. “We won Leinster, we won everything available to us last year. It is a tough one. The challenge is to carry on from last year. We have the talent but we’re hoping to kick on. I know it’s a cliché but we’ll take it game by game and see where it goes from there,” said Sunderland.
“We’re still looking, we have a couple of people who have moved on, a couple of injuries and people who can’t commit for the year, so we are looking at five or six spots up for grabs. We have the talent within the league to do well and even to do better than last year, it’s exciting times ahead,” said Dowling. “We’ll have trials over the next few weeks to reduce the squad down to 18.”
The men’s interleague team will be competing in the Oscar Traynor Cup for the first time in two years and the management team will be led by two men who know the ins and outs of Carlow soccer in Hanover Harps’ Paul Dowling and New Oak’s Eddie Shaw.
“We have training in the first Wednesday of October and we’re looking forward to it. We know what Carlow soccer is about. Eddie has been involved for 40 years, I’ve been involved for 25. We know every player inside out,” said Dowling. “We have about 95% of them picked. We hope to have representatives from all of the teams in the division involved with the squad and maybe even a few Division 1 players might pop up too,” said Shaw.
“Between the two of us, we have two sets of eyes across the league. We are looking to have a very young team. If you’re good enough, you’re old enough. In Division 1, your team might not be good but you could be an exceptional talent,” said Dowling. “We have to be aiming to win it. There is a large amount of talent in this league, even with the experienced lads. It’s a shame we have not had the Oscar Traynor team for the last two years. If we can get the players and the training we want, we’ll be looking to win it,” said Shaw.