This week’s MOWI Game of the Week sees Skye travel to An Aird to take on Fort William, two sides who know each other well from 2019. We sat down with Skye Camanachd Manager Kenny MacLeod to find out more ahead of the big fixture.

Skye got off to a strong start this season holding MOWI Premiership Kinlochshiel to a 0-0 draw at home. What are the ambitions for Skye this season? Both in the league and the cups.

The Kinlochshiel result was a great start to this year and we were unlucky not to get more from that game. Ambitions are really to finish as high in the table as we can and complete in every game and give a good account of ourselves against probably the most competitive league in shinty at the moment. Cup competitions is something we always look forward to and will take each game at a time and see where that takes us. Playing in our league with having that consistency of high standard matches week in week out will certainly help. We will grow with every game this season with having such a long time off playing competitive shinty with almost 19 months between the last competitive game in 2019 and the Kinlochshiel game at the start of this campaign.

How was the experience playing in front of fans for the first time in a long time at the weekend? Do you expect it to have an impact as you travel to An Aird?

It was fantastic to see supporters pitch side on Saturday and credit to Kingussie for organising it so well. The crowd at an Aird is something we always enjoy and it will give our guys a boost. Without the supporters every match was soulless and felt like a friendly but the supporters home or away give that extra edge. Well done for Fort William for getting spectators back in and we are looking forward to it.

Fort are a side you’ll be quite familiar with from 2019 when they were in the MOWI National, what are you expecting from them and how can Skye get the better of them?

We are very familiar with this Fort William side as they are a similar aged squad to our own. Most of the both sets of boys have competed through U14s and U17s and we played them three times in 2019 losing twice and beating them once. They are a really good fit side and we know the dangers that they have going forward and it’s going to be a good contest. Getting the better of them will be down to work rate.

Skye won the MOWI U17 London Shield in 2019 – have many of the youngsters from that squad begun playing themselves into the 1^st team yet?

We have 7 from the 2018 winning MOWI London Shield winning side and we have 2 so far from the 2019 winning team . It’s been difficult for most from the 2019 juvenile side to grow after not to get the 2020 senior season under their belts with the second team so hoping to add a couple more to the squad next.