It’s not often that a team can spring the current inter-county manager from their bench to have an impact on the game, but Kilcoo are blessed with that luxury. Conor Laverty may be managing his county, but he is still a player and still trying his best to get on the team – and impress his own manager Karl Lacey. The former Donegal star decided to unleash Laverty in the last quarter of the Ulster club championship tie against Crosserlough on Saturday night, and it was a move that paid off almost instantly.
The crafty corner-forward kicked a beautiful point with the outside of his right, and got more touches than anyone in the closing stages of the game when Kilcoo were trying to keep possession and kill the clock. With victory secured, and a place in the Ulster semi-final booked, the Down champions are looking stronger than ever, and Lacey has some difficult decisions to make in the coming weeks. “For us it always comes back to training and Conor has been training really, really well for us,” said Lacey.
“He is just that competitor, he’s Kilcoo through and through, and if there is anybody that didn’t want to lose, then it was Conor. “He came into the game at the right time, he made a real difference – intelligence is probably the right thing to use at that stage of the game. “The way he can draw the right frees, play the wee pass into Paul Devlin, the weight of it, everything like that, he just does it so cleverly.
” The 2012 All-Ireland winner knows the v.
