Henderson fuming after early goals
REACTION
Daire Walsh
AFTER seeing his side falling short against St Patrick’s Athletic in the FAI Cup quarter-final at Richmond Park on Saturday, Cobh Ramblers manager Stephen Henderson admitted he was “fuming” at the way they had left themselves with so much to do in the second half of the game.
The St Colman’s Park outfit were facing into a three-goal interval deficit, and with strikes from Connor Ellis and Rob Lehane bringing them back into contention on the resumption, Henderson was left frustrated by the defensive lapses in the opening period.
“Fuming. We started up with five at the back, specifically to nullify [Christy] Fagan standing in the box with free headers. When you see him [Fagan] standing five yards from goal, without jumping, nodding it in, I was fuming,” said Henderson.
“They’re things that happen with young players, but you don’t want it to happen at such an important game like this. Then, when you go out into the second-half, and you see the difference in terms of our aggression in trying to win the ball back, in terms of putting the ball in behind them, getting crosses into the box, all of that stuff, that should have been there in the first-half, wasn’t.”
However, with a crunch league fixture on the horizon against UCD this coming Friday, Henderson was nevertheless keen to concentrate on their impressive second-half display.
“I’d rather focus more on the second-half, obviously, because I thought we were brilliant. Obviously, with [Garry] Comerford and [Shane] O’Connor in there, O’Connor got a bit more adventurous going forward. Charlie Flemming was excellent down the right for us today, putting crosses into the box for us.
“We actually said at half-time ‘These boys will probably think the game is over, 3-0 down’. We went 20 yards further up the pitch to try and win the ball back off them, and it worked, because they started making mistakes.”