Gavin O’Connor spoke to Austin Stacks boss, Stephen Stack, recently about preparations ahead of Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final showdown with Slaughtneil…
Stephen Stack.
“NO REGRETS” has been the Austin Stacks mantra since they began their club championship campaign nine months ago.
For many of the players, Sunday will be the most important game of their lives.
Stephen Stack and his team have been doing their homework on Ulster opponents, Slaughtneil, in the All-Ireland club championship semi-final this Sunday. They’ve waited a long time since the Munster final in November, but Stephen Stack and his charges are ready for battle.
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“It’s uncharted territory for us because we’ve never had this sort of a layoff between championship matches. We took a week or maybe ten days off just before Christmas, we got straight back into it then, we’ve been working away really for the last six or seven weeks fairly hard.”
Challenge matches against the Clare senior team and the Cork U21s, plus a town championship final against O’Rahilly’s has helped Stack and his charges prepare for Sunday’s big match. Ronan Shanahan remains the only injury worry, a decision on the defender’s fitness is expected at the end of the week.
“The lads at this stage can see that they’re getting very close to the game coming around. We’ll be tailing off the week of the match and getting in the right frame of mind because that’s going to be very important,” said Stack.
“Ok, the year does drag out, but we’ll take that. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for these players, and I think they recognise that themselves,” said the manager.
“The bookies have us as fourth favourites. We bridged a 20 year gap by winning the county title and bridged a 37 year gap in Munster, but I don’t get a sense that either the management or the players are settling for that. This is a once off opportunity. If we lose, I don’t want us to have any regrets, I don’t want them to be conservative. It’s an All-Ireland semi-final, we’ll have to go for it” said Stack
“In the last twelve months I’d say nearly every player has improved on aspects of their game. Some fellas previously might not have worked as hard, but they’re doing that now. It might not be the most natural part of their game, particularly some of the forwards.”
In 2014, their opponents, Slaughtneil, picked up their first provincial title which added to their second county championship in their history, the previous title coming in 2004.
“We’ve huge respect for them. Their background coming into the competition is very similar to ourselves. They’re very strong around the middle of the field. We’ve looked at five of their games on video and a friend of mine who’s a good judge of the game was at the Ulster Final, so he came back and spoke to our players about what they can expect.”
“They are very strong around the middle, good at retaining the ball. They don’t give it away too often and are very physical, but within the rules. They’re also very patient, those would be some of their characteristics.”
“There is a lot of similarities between how both teams will play. They’ve come through a lot of tough battles as well.”
“I think it’s going to be a physical battle, I think the middle third of the pitch is where the game will be won and lost. It’s the area where they have dominated nearly every team they have played. Patience and decision-making are the kind of things that will swing the game in club football. If you have a period of dominance it’s all about capitalising on that. It’s something we’ll be hoping to do.”
“It’s going to be a very tough game there’s no question about that, but I think we’ll be prepared for it,” he said.
