Curtis Brown was keeping his powder dry as he assessed Premier Division dark horses Derriaghy’s chances of stealing in for the title.
The 24-year-old defender reckons the league is Immaculata’s and Rathfriland’s to throw away, but with both those teams set to host the Border Cup champions during the run-in, Derriaghy have more than a half-chance of winning it themselves.
A six-game winning streak in the league has made sure of that, and any lingering doubts were blown sky high on Saturday as they hammered Rathfriland 5-0 in Seymour Hill, bringing the Whites crashing back down to earth after they had edged Crumlin Star 2-1 in what had looked like a pivotal top-of-the-table clash at Iveagh Park last Tuesday night.
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But wisely, while accepting his own team are contenders, Brown deflected expectations onto Derriaghy’s rivals, including the Mac who they face this weekend.
“It’s usually East Belfast and Star running away with the league, no one else has a chance in it,” explained the Derriaghy skipper, who signed for the club in the summer from Dundela.
“For me, it’s probably between Rathfriland and Immaculata; if I’m honest about it, they look the favourites, that’s how I see it, those two pushing for the league. I think the Star and East have fallen off a bit there after the last few defeats.
“But we’ll keep an eye on them (Immaculata and Rathfriland), they play each other here on Thursday night.
“But for us, this Saturday, I don’t see why we change anything, we keep going with the same attitude, the same work-rate and you never know, hopefully we get the result we need.”
Indeed, momentum is a big advantage in football, and Derriaghy approach this make-or-break final month of the season in great form.
“The last three or four weeks have given us a big boost, it’s been clean sheet after clean sheet, that gives the strikers more freedom to go ahead and attack, they don’t have to worry about us at the back,” added Brown.
“We’ve kept seven clean sheets from our last 10 and that gives us a big boost and you never know, fingers crossed.
“At the start of the season, we were written off; a new team put together, people expected us to be in a relegation fight, but we proved a lot of people wrong this season.
“If everything fell in our favour, and a few teams do us a favour, then you never know, we have a good shout.”
And on Saturday’s win, which came courtesy of goals from Scotty Dornan (2), Nick Beta (2), and Ethan Taggart, Brown added: “We started like a house on fire and got two quick goals near the start of the game, and then after that, we just controlled the tempo.
“They had a few decent chances but they just couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net.”
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