COBH BOSS HENDERSON GUTTED FOR PLAYERS ARE NARROW PLAY-OFF DEFEAT

Daire Walsh

Soccer

FOLLOWING his side’s agonising aggregate defeat to Drogheda United in the SSE Airtricity League First Division Promotion play-off, Cobh Ramblers manager Stephen Henderson said he was “gutted” for all those involved with the club.

Although goals from Connor Ellis and Shane O’Connor helped Ramblers to win on the night, a Gareth McCaffrey strike on 61 minutes ensured that Drogheda secured a 3-2 victory over the course of the two legs, but Henderson was nonetheless thrilled with the response to last weekend’s two-goal reversal at St Colman’s Park.

“Their goalkeeper [Stephen McGuinness] was man of the match, I think that says it all. I think they had one shot on target all night, and it flies in. That’s just the way its crumbled for us,” Henderson remarked after the game.

“We were disappointed with last week, and we asked the boys to come out and try and just win this match tonight, and see where it takes us. To be honest with you, I thought we deserved to win. I’m gutted for the players. I’m gutted for the supporters and the club.”

Given they came into the play-offs on the back of five consecutive wins, Henderson acknowledged that losing poorly at this stage would have undone a lot of their good work, and he was pleased that they were able to do themselves justice.

“That was our intention, to come here and try and win the game. We were saying that we had a very good season with these young players, but we didn’t want the season to be remembered for losing poorly in the play-off.

“It would have undone all of the good work that we did. They were fantastic tonight, and Ramblers people are going home absolutely thrilled with how these players played for them. You kind of forget that we actually won tonight. It was brilliant out of us, from everybody involved, and just very disappointed for them.”

Although they just missed out on promotion this year, Cobh will enter 2017 with a great deal of optimism, and Henderson believes they have shown that they can now mix it with the best of what the First Division has to offer.

“We played really well, and we have standards, and we have momentum. That momentum, these lads will come back to pre-season now, looking forward to pre-season, because now we know that we can go anywhere and win a game of ball.

“There was a lot of really great stuff here tonight from us. We forget we won the game, but we’re gutted that we’re gone out,” Henderson added.