Cavanah's ultimate praise for hot Lions

Craig Ross

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

© The Cairns Post

LEICHHARDT coach Chris Pennington has the Lions roaring after the opening weekend of the FNQ Football, his Innisfail counterpart John Cavanah says.

Cavanah, who has returned to the Cutters’ coaching role in which he enjoyed much success in the early 1990s, was impressed with what he saw from the Lions in his side’s 5-2 loss at White Rock on Sunday.

"The Lions played very well, they played good football and their coach has done a good job with the team," he said.

"It is the best I’ve ever seen a Leichhardt team play," he said.

"In the past, Leichhardt teams have been built around intimidation and physicality, but they played with a lot of structure and organisation (on Sunday) and deserved to win."

Despite the loss, Cavanah was also pleased with aspects of the Cutters’ game, with a number of the players meeting for the first time only just before the kick-off.

"We haven’t been able to train much because of the weather," Cavanah said.

"They played reasonably well but their fitness levels were not there.

"We’ve had a lot of players come back to the club and we want to integrate them with the good youth players we have coming through the ranks."

Cavanah said youngsters including defender Joel Curtis and
goalkeeper Connor McKiernan and rising star Kristian Vecchio had impressed in the opening round.

Pennington was pleased with the result against a team he feels will be difficult to beat this season.

"It was a nice way to start the season off," he said. "We’ve still got a long way to go, we lost it for the last 15 minutes of the first half, but we were able to pull it back.

"Innisfail played good football through the middle, but we were able to come out in the second half and put them away."

Pennington was also pleased with the early progress of several of last season’s youth players who have been promoted to the premier division, praising defender Connor Kennedy and midfielder Alec Warner for their efforts against the Cutters.

The premier division continues tomorrow night when the FNQ under-19s and Edge Hill Saints meet at Stratford.

http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2010/04/13/105331_local-sport-news.html