WATCH | “The boys just want competitive Football now” Treaty United boss Tommy Barrett speaks ahead of season opener

Tommy Barrett spoke to Adrian Finnin ahead of Treaty United’s season opener against Wexford on Friday.

With Treaty United’s season almost underway there is much excitement around Limerick and fans are looking forward to seeing their team try and push on after an excellent maiden campaign.

Treaty United suffered losses against Finn Harps and Shamrock Rovers in two of their preseason games, but in their second season, the squad would love to put any doubts from those matches to bed with a victory over Wexford in the first round of the SSE Airtricity League First Division on Friday.

Ahead of the game Adrian Finnin had a chance to speak to Manager Tommy Barrett about the upcoming season.

Barrett and his squad are looking forward to getting back to competitive games again, as Barrett alluded to,

“Preseason it can be good and there is lots of good sessions and there’s good friendlies, but the boys just want to get to competitive football now”

Throughout preseason Treaty found themselves missing key players through injury, with Barrett providing an update on his injured players before the season starts.

“Dean (George) is struggling, we might get a fitness test and he might be okay. Sean Guerins we will see how he goes he’s git a bit of tendentious in his ankle. Since last week Jack Lynch has been struggling he’s unlikely to make it id say and Mark Ludden has a bit of knock as well so we have a few that are borderline.”

The loss of Mike McCarthy from Treaty’s backroom team had been a blow for everyone. Excitingly now Brian O’Callaghan has been appointed to come in to fill in his place, and Barrett had this to say about the new arrival.

“Brian is a good coach, you know we lost Mike who is a really good coach. He was doing a bit of psychology with the lads, sports psychology because he has a masters in that. Mike is a loss in that regard and in the coaching there are big boots to fill, but Brian has come in and he hit the ground running and he’s been fantastic with the lads so far.”

“He has taken a lot of the sessions and a lot of the exercises and they have been very good, his experience as a player helped in that regard. He knows what players like and what players want and he keeps it simple so that’s all I’m looking for.”

Speaking about his teams expectations this year ahead of the game against Wexford, Barrett understood his side must try meet a higher standard due to their playoff push last season.

And the Limerick native wants to keep to his “mantra” of week by week. In regards to his expectations he said,

“Yeah were not focusing on it Adrian you are right. You know we are focussing on Wexford because if you start focussing on the playoffs you lose focus essentially. You lose focus in the next game so you cant focus on the playoff or winning a league if you’re thinking like that because anything can happen.

“Injuries can happen, you lose games, you draw games if you set those type of targets in deflates. If the players lose a game or two then they lack motivation so for me it’s about being motivated for the next game.”