Swords new horizons

WITH the 2015-16 LSL intermediate season kicking off this weekend, newly appointed Swords Celtic boss and former Celtic player Niall Hudson insists his players are raring to go.
Unfortunately for those players, Swords’ campaign will not kick-off until early September after the side were given permission from the LSL to begin later due to a number of players being out of the country and other reasons.
Despite not starting this weekend, Hudson still gave us the opportunity pick his brain ahead of the weekend. “I’m really looking forward to it,” he said. “It’s going to be a challenge in a really tough league, but we’ve some good players and hopefully we can do well.”
Hudson is a local to Swords and has good pedigree despite his short managerial career thus far. Having been once on the books at Nottingham Forest, the talented full-back then spent time in lower leagues of English football before moving home to Dublin City and then Dundalk before signing up for hometown side Swords.
Celtic have won promotion two years in a row, but now find themselves in the second tier of the LSL, Senior Division 1 Sunday, and the 32-year-old manager admitted promotion may be a bit too much to ask for at the first attempt.
“We’ve done really well to get back-to-back promotions but if you’re asking me is that the target again this year, I would say you’re always looking to at least get promotion but it’s probably a bit too much to ask for this year,” said Hudson.
“It might take a couple of games to find our feet at this level and then see how we are. There are some really strong teams in this league but our players are raring to test themselves so it should be exciting.”
Hudson previously worked as assistant manager at Duleek alongside fellow former League of Ireland star Trevor Molloy last season and only stepped into his new role a couple of weeks ago.
He has managed to sign up a couple of new faces in that time but insists there is still work to be done on the recruiting front.
“I’ve brought Gavin Whelan back to the club, who is a good man to have in the middle of the park and has plenty of experience. I’ve also brought a lad in from Navan, and I am working on a good few more.
“I’m only in the job a couple of weeks but I have targets. The emphasis is probably on experience because we’ve a lot of good young players but need a few older heads to come in, you need a good mix of both and experience can be vital at this level.”