Bray's John Sullivan denies claims players weren't paid

John Sullivan chats exclusively to extratime.ie reporter Paul Corcoran

Bray Wanderers midfielder John Sullivan has spoken out about last week’s newspaper reports about the club.

Last week The Irish Sun reported that a number of Bray Wanderers players had not been paid on time ahead of their Premier Division game against St Patrick’s Athletic.

The Seagulls released a statement refuting this claim and called on the newspaper to release the names of the players who were left waiting for their wages.

Sullivan has also rubbished the story.

“That was garbage. That was absolute garbage,” he told extratime.ie.

“My nan used to say no news is good news but I guess for journalists no news is no job.

“Someone called us on the way to the game to ask us, and we were like no. If there was ever a problem you’d hear it first from the players.

“Stop assuming as you make an ass out of you and me and that’s what some of the journalists need to do.

“If they’re going to write about the League of Ireland, write about it for the positives it’s a fantastic league and if they have any suggestions, not just journalists, suggest better options don’t just criticise.

“It kind of pissed me off. I thought to myself here we go again with stupid rumours. Will it affect players? These things do affect players because you’re thinking, they wouldn’t say it for nothing but in this case they are.”

Shamrock Rovers hammered Dave Mackey’s men on Monday night when Bray visited Tallaght, with The Hoops putting six goals past Aaron Dillon.

“We were going into the break 1 nil down. The gaffer gave his instructions and some of the instructions weren’t taken on board we shot ourselves in the foot. 46^th minute goal, two nil down and then the flood gates just opened,” Sullivan said.

“It was a six nil game there’s no point lying saying it wasn’t when it was.

“We did well against Dundalk first game of the season and then Pat’s we conceded two early goals. We’ve got to learn from it. How we defended against Pat’s early on we brought that into Rovers.”

Weather permitting Bray will host Waterford on Friday night and The Seagulls will be looking to bounce back against a side that have impressed in their opening games back in the Premier Division.                              

“Waterford are a very good side. They were fantastic last year and they’ve gotten even stronger.

“They’ve added better players, they’ve kept a lot of their players. What we’ve been doing is just what we’ve been doing ahead of every game. We look at ourselves, have we improved, we look at the opponents and how we can catch them out.”

Bray Wanderers take on Waterford at The Carlisle Grounds on Friday night (kick-off 7:45pm).