It has been a great first year as Kyles Athletic manager, but also a stressful one for James Perlich as he has steered his club to two cup wins and the brink of shinty history.
Either way that will be made in a season that will now see the Marine Harvest Premiership title race go to the last day whatever happens in Saturday’s potential decider at Kinlochshiel, who are also hoping they can become Scottish champions for the first time in what is their last season at their long time home ground at Kirkton.
For Kyles, though, it could be all the more significant because they would be the first ‘southern’ team to win the title and after they enhanced their chances with Saturday’s rather fortunate win over a depleted Newtonmore side, he offered some insight into the scale of the challenge that faces his team.
“It’s not been easy over the past few weeks, not playing any matches at home,” he said, that situation exacerbated on Saturday by having to give up home advantage and put in another long round trip to Oban because their ground was waterlogged.
“We were five hours travelling to Lovatlast week and six hours back which takes it out of you and all adds to the pressure. The league is a big undertaking for us. We’ve probably done in excess of 3000 miles this season, but it means so much to the village and the community. We’re trying to do something that’s never been done which would make it very special.”
That represents a huge commitment as well as a major logistical exercise for an amateur sports team whose first team prepare in four different places, two main pods at home in Tighnabruich and Glasgow, while Colin MacDonald trains with Newtonmore and Donald Irvine in Aberdeen.
They do it for the love of one of the most uncompromisingly physical sports in the world where players are at least as likely to be penalised for putting themselves in vulnerable positions as for taking advantage of that.
Which is not to say these tough customers are invulnerable emotionally and it was a jittery showing at Mossfield Park on Saturday, even after SandyMacKenzie registered the goal late in the first half that was ultimately to earn them the points that, accompanied by Kinlochshiel dropping one in drawing with Glenurquhart. Perlich had, though, anticipated that it would not be the smoothest of run-ins, particularly on the back of a spell that has seen them on the road every weekend for more than a month since their last match in Tighnabruich.
“I knew ahead of last week that we were going to have to win three of our last four and I didn’t know which one but I knew we were going to have a bad game somewhere in there,” he said. “That happened last week (when they lost at Newtonmore’s Camanachd Cup final opponents Lovat) and I didn’t think we played that well today either, but we got the result we needed and now it’s a final next week.”
It was also a win which formally ended Netwonmore’s run of successive championship wins and while the decision to leave out top goal-scorer Glen Mackintosh and David MacLean in the knowledge that a yellow card for either would rule them out of the Camanachd Cup final, was an acknowledgement that they had accepted the inevitable, they were commendably competitive, missing a string of chances, while Kyles goal-keeper John Whyte made a succession of quality saves.
A new name on the trophy is inevitable, then with Saturday almost certainly deciding which and, as Perlich observed: “It’s great that the title race is going to the second last week of the season.”
The hope is that the match will be played at Kirkton, not least because of the specialness of the occasion with Kinlochshiel playing their last match there.
For all that they are understood to have put in a formal application to re-schedule their league match with Lochaber to allow Steven Macdonald to work off his suspension, their defensive problems having been exacerbated by a nasty injury to Andy Mackintosh on Saturday, Newtonmore meanwhile now switch their full attention to the Camanachd Cup final and their bid to retain that trophy.
“We’re at the bare bones,” said manager PJ Mackintosh. “We’ve lost our whole defence apart from Ackie *Macrrae), so it’s not going to be easy, in fact it will be almost impossible, but we’ll re-jig and we’ll have to turn forwards into defenders or centres into defenders and just juggle it.”
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