Tower’s tall SFC order

ROUND Tower, Clondalkin kick off their senior championship campaign this weekend with a daunting trip to Parnell Park to take on champions St Vincent’s on Saturday evening at 6.30pm.
Towers have enjoyed an excellent start to the season by recording three wins from three in the adult football league division two, including a 2-15 to 3-6 win over last year’s playoff finalists St Annes, to sit joint top of the league alongside Naomh Olaf.
Towers’ manager Paul Lanigan is hoping that form can give his young side an extra impetus going into the match with St Vincent’s.
“We have good confidence from our start in the league which is great but we are also going into this game under no pressure – which is also a great thing,” Lanigan told GazetteSport. “Obviously on paper, if you look at it, St Vincent’s are by far the favourites.
“Ideally, we are looking to win our first game in the championship and it’s going to be tough against St Vincent’s with the likes of Enda Varley, Mossy Quinn, Ger Brennan and Diarmuid Connolly, you can rhyme them off. There are plenty there with experience. We are a young team but we are working hard to be ready.”
Towers were unlucky to find themselves drawn against St Vincent’s in the first round but Lanigan knows that you have to be able to put it up to teams of St Vincent’s calibre if they want to build ongoing success.
“I’m sure every team in Dublin didn’t want that one. St Vincent’s are a fantastic team and have fantastic players so you obviously want to test yourselves against such teams.
“We’d like to be firing on all cylinders. We’ve a couple of injuries at the moment but hopefully they can pull through.
“The Dublin championship is the toughest competition in the country and you don’t have the luxury of having a round robin where you would play a minimum amount of games in the A championship. It’s straight knockout so that doesn’t help. It’s the luck of the draw who you get.”
Even if Saturday’s game doesn’t go the way of Towers, Lanigan has seen enough so far this season to be happy with how his team is progressing.
“We are quite happy. We have a few injuries which isn’t ideal but every team has that. We need to be firing at 100% but that’s mine and Mark Gahan’s job to have the team prepared and ready.”