Game 1 2019 Preview: Home To Trinity

By Liam Grimley

On Sunday, your Craigavon Cowboys play Trinity College Dublin. It is a tough fixture for us and it will be a learning experience for sure. This Trinity side is completely different to what we have faced in the past. Head Coach Greg Loughran has acknowledged the threat of the students that will be “gagging for football”. He is feeling confident going into this week stating, "It will be nice to kick off our season at home". Also praising his offensive line and his defense’s progression, Loughran has confidence that his team can prevail at People’s Park in Portadown on Sunday, “Generally, If you are at home you have a better chance of winning.” This statement hopefully staking a claim to our opponents this weekend.

This comes off the back of a successful joint scrimmage with the South Dublin Panthers 2 weeks ago. We learnt a lot that day and were able to "look for the areas that we were able to work on", Loughran was then able to come into this week with a clear plan on how to strengthen those areas and to best prepare the ‘Boys for the “well-prepared” students of Trinity College. The Cowboys may see themselves as underdogs going into this matchup, what with the time available to Trinity and the "great facilities" at the College itself.

However, this outfit has not yet had the chance to iron out its kinks in open scrimmage yet and will be experimenting with schemes and plays, whereas we have been able to install and test our new playbooks against another team and capitalise on that opportunity. “We have adjusted the problems we think we had, and we will be ready for Trinity”.

Overall, the feeling from the Craigavon Cowboys camp is one of cautious positivity and respect for our opponents. Hopefully, the home advantage will translate into a 1 and 0 start and a stellar display from this new-style Craigavon Cowboys setup. Keep updated on all scores and moments on our social media pages and website. #WeAreCowboys