BY NOEL HORGAN

FLOR O’Driscoll believes Ilen Rovers have potential to improve for their upcoming McCarthy Insurance Group Intermediate A Football Championship final replay against Ballinora.

The Ilen boss admits his team were not at their best in last weekend’s draw, 2-9 to 0-15, yet were within seconds of capturing the county title before Ballinora’s Neil Lordan nailed a last-gasp two-pointer free to send the game to a replay.

Both teams are now preparing for their showdown on Sunday, November 16th, back at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in a tie that will act in the first of an intermediate A final double-header (1.30pm) – Bandon take on double-chasing Aghabullogue in the hurling decider afterwards (3.30pm).

For Ilen, the focus is on improvement, and O’Driscoll is convinced there’s more to come from the West Cork men in the replay.

‘You always feel you can do better after a drawn game, so we’ll just have to wait and see who raises their performance and who gets the breaks the next day,’ the Ilen manager said.

‘We think we have the potential to improve, I’d say Ballinora believe they can do a few things better as well, so it’s all to play for really,’ suggested O’Driscoll, who is certainly hoping developments in the replay will be different, accepting they were lucky to survive on the overall run of the play last Sunday.

‘Ballinora were really good throughout the game, and they’ll be much happier than us with their performance,’ he admitted.

‘We got a soft enough goal before half time, our goalkeeper made two great saves, we got another ball off the line, and there’s no doubt about it we were fortunate in those situations.

‘There were some positives we can take from it all too, of course. I thought we defended well at times and we worked some very good scores when the game was in the melting-pot, even if we weren’t playing at our best,’ he added.

Meanwhile, Ballinora manager Ken O’Halloran was full of praise for Neil Lordan after his last-gasp two-pointer free that levelled the final.

‘That late two-pointer Neil got, I don’t think it was ever in doubt he was going to stick it, because he’s a real leader, the type of player to stand up when the pressure is on and the need is greatest.’