We want to do our best on the world stage

Harry McConkey will celebrate his tenth year as manager of the Northern Ireland Eastern Region squad with an appearance at the UEFA Region Cup Finals in Dublin at the end of June.

The squad of amateur players from the East of the province defied the odds in qualifying to top their group and make it through to the tournament finals, and under the guidance of Harry they will once again be attempting to spring a surprise when they kick off their campaign against Germany.

“We certainly go in as underdogs but we are pretty good at being underdogs,” said Harry. “We find ourselves in another tough group with Germany who are ranked fifth, Croatia ranked ninth and then Poland who are ranked 11th, but our target is to go out there on the world stage and perform as best as we possibly can and represent our country, and everything else is a bonus for us.” While the odds may be stacked against the Northern Irish side, they can take great encouragement from their performances in the qualifying stages, when they overcame Europe’s number one ranked team to emerge with a one hundred percent record in their group.

“In the qualifying we had Spain, Moldova and Ukraine,” explained Harry. “We were ranked in the UEFA coefficients at 19 out of the 38 teams in the competition. Spain were number one, Moldova were 23rd and Ukraine 8th so to come out of that group was a wonderful bonus because only one team made it through and no one gave us a chance. To beat Spain was brilliant!” Preparations have been going well for the competition with the Eastern Region squad will setting up their camp in Sligo next weekend, before playing a Sligo Rovers side on Sunday June 7. Although they do not have the luxury of setting up a training camp in La Manga like their Republic of Ireland counterparts, Harry has been receiving advice from the National team manager as he fine tunes his final arrangements.

“I had a good chat with Michael O’Neill regarding preparation and he has been very helpful with it,” revealed Harry. “It is a very difficult time of year to play, particularly for the teams whose season has just ended, because some of them have been playing to mid-May with cup finals and other matches. We had a game this week against a world student games team. We lost 3-1 but they were a very good side with students who are at University but linked to League of Ireland clubs.” This season the tournament is being hosted by Dublin, and although the venue may not have the exotic appeal of previous campaigns, Harry believes the location could play into their hands. “There are a lot of plusses to having it in the Republic,” he said. “There is a certain amount of romance lost with that because we have travelled all over Europe in my ten years as manager and it has been great to experience different cultures, but very much the plus side is we don’t have to travel, we don’t have to acclimatise, we have already seen the training facilities which are excellent, and we are only 15 minutes from the stadiums we are playing at. I know the FAI are keen to put on a great show.” The squad start their campaign with a match against Germany on the evening of Friday June 26, before playing Croatia at midday two days later. Their final group game is against Poland on July 1, with a potential final taking place on July 4.