Two titans of shinty clash this Saturday in the Mowi Game of the Week as 2023 Premiership runners-up Kyles Athletic travel to Mossfield to take on Macaulay Cup holders, Oban Camanachd. We sat down with Kyles’ centre and Co-Manager Roddy MacDonald to preview the clash…
Roddy, a great match in store this weekend as you travel to Mossfield, how have the preparations gone for this game?
Yeah should be a good game we always enjoy our games with Camanachd always a hard fought battle. We just prepare like any other week, couple of niggling injuries so just monitoring them.
There’s been a few tricky games so far this season – how do you rank the challenge ahead of you on Saturday compared to those you’ve already played?
It’s been a difficult start to the season fixture wise and we haven’t performed how we can yet but feel it’s coming. Oban are one of the best sides in the country, injuries have hampered early season results for them but I think they will be right up for it come Saturday and it’ll be a difficult game.
With Camanachd having a few notable absences over the past couple of weeks, is this the perfect time to play them?
If there is such a thing as a perfect time to play them that might of been on the first week of the season which was cancelled due to the weather, but no they have a big squad to choose from and good strength in depth, think most of there boys are back now aswell.
You obviously have a hand in managing the team as well as playing, what is that like?
Playing and managing is quite challenging, the four of us try our best, it’s ok when things are going well, but if you are trying to play and think of how to turn things around when losing or under the cosh that becomes hard. It’s not ideal but it is where we are at.
On a personal note, a strong league season with Kyles and then Managing Scotland isn’t half bad for 2023, but what are your goals for this campaign?
Yeah last season was great on a personal level with captaining Scotland and felt like I was playing well after moving into the centreline. We were extremely disappointed with our cup performance last season but we learned a lot from that and really kicked on in the league run in. We are looking to get our squad fully fit and then hopefully make a good go at the cup competitions this year, the league is a far stretch with a small squad like ours so we will just see how we go in that without setting any real targets.
