Head Coach of Sligo Rugby Club Paddy Pearson, is targeting a top four finish for his team this year, as they look to bounce back from an opening day defeat.
It’s been a difficult 2022 to date for Sligo. Last season, they saw their promotion charge end after a disappointing second half of the season, despite looking like real contenders for a spot in the Top 4 early on.
This season, Paddy Pearson has returned to the club as head coach and despite an opening day defeat to Belfast Harlequins, the New Zealand native remains optimistic that promotion can be achieved.
Speaking on FinalWhistle.ie’s The Rugby Show, Pearson spoke about his ambitions for the side this campaign.
Pearson said:
“We set goals at the start of the season. We get the lads to set rugby goals and their own goals outside of rugby as well which is really important for us. With college and work and home life and stuff. Our first goal was to win the senior league, but it turned into a bit of a mess.
We had one game less, Corinthians pulled out of the first game and in Connacht you only have four games, and you want to really get them all under your belt to build some structure in the team. We ended up missing out on points difference to Buccaneers, they scored in the last play of the game.
“Top Four is probably where we need to be, and I think it’s where we should be with the squad we have. You can’t always count for injuries and certain positions are harder than others to fill. Rough start for us but you know, I think we’ll be fine. We’ve got enough good players and we trust everyone that comes in.”
After the 26-9 defeat to Belfast Harlequins, Sligo have suffered a number of notable injuries to some of their starting XV, but Pearson remains positive over his side’s squad depth.
“We took really, four or five bad injuries at the weekend. Couple of them look like they might be coming through. Jack Keegan, he’s definitely out, he’s got broken ribs so that will force a change there. We sort of waiting on late fitness, physio things like that to come through later this week so we probably won’t know until maybe Thursday evening really, but I expect that we will be missing two or three lads coming into Saturday. But we will back whoever comes in and just get on with it.”
This weekend, Sligo welcome Malahide to Hamilton Park, a side who overcame Wanderers in round one last week.
Check out this week’s episode of The Rugby Show below:
Luke Delaney
Luke is a final year Journalism student in DCU. He is a Sports Reporter for Wicklow People Sport and FinalWhistle.ie.