Feely looking to make most of second chance at Barrow

ATHY'S Rory Feely has spoken of his delight at being afforded another crack at EFL League Two football with Barrow AFC this year.

The 27-year-old defender looked to be on his way out of the English club after he was named among a number of players being released by the Bluebirds at the close of their contracts.

Yet, following the departure of manager, Pete Wild and the appointment of his replacement, Stephen Clemence, Barrow opted to do a U-turn on the decision to let Feely go, with the Kildare man, instead, penning a new one-year deal with the club.

“At the end of the season, the manager at the time didn’t feel like I was in his plans and he ended up releasing me” explained Feely.

“There were a lot of factors that I had to consider coming into June, such as, would I have to move apartment? Move place? A lot of complicated stuff that would come with moving club.

“But then the new manager [Clemence], who has come in, has seen me in his plans, so I’m grateful to be back where I am now to give it another go.

“I was just glad to stay in League Two and stay where I was in the country. It was a no-brainer for me to take another chance and hopefully this time I gain even more success from it.

“Coming back in, I did think there were going to be a lot more new faces than old faces, but luckily enough, we have the core of the team still there from last season, so coming back into the club was seamless pretty much.

“It’s a club I really enjoy being at and I really like the people behind the scenes as well, so if I wanted to have another crack at League Two, this was the club I wanted to be at to do that.

“I’ve gotten on really well with Stephen. He’s a relatively new manager himself and I feel that with his drive and that of my own, we can work really well together and hopefully establish a successful relationship and have a successful season with Barrow” he told The Kildare Nationalist.

Feely enjoyed a considerable amount of game time with Barrow last season, operating primarily at centre half and occasionally at right back.

The team looked to be on course to, at least, reach the play-offs, but a disappointing home-run that saw them pick up a mere two points from their closing seven matches, meant they finished up just a solitary point off the final play-off berth that went the way of Crawley Town, who continued on to secure promotion.

“In the last couple of games of the season we needed just one win to seal it [a play-off berth] and we just didn’t deliver, so that was just as much on the players as it was on anyone else at the club” admitted Feely.

“We just didn’t get ourselves over the finish line to get into the play-offs, so that was unfortunate really.

“It’s always going to be the plan to improve on the season just gone and if we can do that, there’s no doubt that we’ll be up there. Hopefully we can be more consistent.

“Pre-season has been going really well. We had a tough first few weeks, just pretty much flat-out running and then we’ve gradually introduced the football stuff into that.

“Our coaching staff focus more on as many games as possible in pre-season as the best way to get our match fitness up, so that’s what we’ve been doing” he said.

Feely, who played much of his schoolboy football with Athy Town and Crumlin United, made the move to St Patrick’s Athletic as a youth.

He established himself in the League of Ireland ranks with Waterford United and Bohemians before signing for Barrow in January 2023.

While he did feature in some 30 league matches for the Bluebirds last season, Feely admitted that it was a challenge to improve his game to meet the standard of EFL League Two football.

“Moving to England was a lot trickier than I had imagined” he recalled.

“When you’ve played that long in the League of Ireland, you think that the standard of League of Ireland is going up, and so you think you’re at League Two level in England.

“But there’s still that little bit of a jump. This is everyone’s full-time job over here and you have 22 teams all working full-time professionally, so there is that bit of a jump in standard and it’s a jump in fitness and athleticism that you didn’t think was going to be there.

“But it was a really exciting challenge for me when I came over here and I was delighted to get that opportunity” he stressed.