Mowi Game of the Week - Newtonmore vs Oban Camanachd

Steven MacDonald Interview

The race for the Mowi Premiership title is heading to the wire, with Newtonmore welcoming Oban Camanachd to The Eilan this Saturday. Ahead of the match we spoke to Newtonmore’s Steven MacDonald.

It’s the final game of the season, with Newtonmore still having an outside shot at the title – how are you feeling ahead of the match?

Feeling good about the game at the weekend – it’s been a rollercoaster of a season for us, but to still have a slight chance of success in the league is a positive as we thought we had chucked it after the Skye game.

Regardless of Newtonmore’s league finish, it’s been a huge improvement this season – do you think the squad can build on this next season?

Regardless of the result of the league we have to look at a lot of positives for Newtonmore this year, we have been on a slow but positive rebuild each year getting better and tighter as a team and the two additions to the squad this year Matty and Daniel have slotted in really nicely and hopefully they felt comfortable in our squad. We have had a lot of standouts for us this year and worked hard in training as a team driving each other on!

Part of this improvement is of course lifting the Tulloch Homes Camanachd Cup – how brilliant was it to regain the cup after a long wait?

Winning the Scottish this year was an unbelievable feeling, not only for the team but on a personal level as I got to share memories with my 2 year old daughter – walking out with her for the first time in a final was a great feeling! But for the team it was massive confidence boost and the boys have deserved to have some successes, as we have been training really hard this year on fitness and more on stick work and basic shinty which has cost us in the past, and to beat our biggest rivals was just the icing on the cake to a superb weekend!

Success hasn’t only arrived for the seniors, as the u17s have had an incredible season – how important can these youngsters be in guaranteeing the long term success of the club?

The under 17s have been really dominant in all games they have had this year, but when you see the strength they have from front to back it’s easy to see why they have been winning everything, Joe and Matty are obviously with us but it’s not just them pushing the team forward – James Coyle, Jacob Bain, Lewis Mac and Joey Brannan are all massive parts of the team also and when they train with us it definitely shows they are not far from knocking on the door for the first team, which can only be good for the club.

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