Buckley happy to be 'moving along'

Saint Patrick's Athletic manager Liam Buckley was slightly disappointed that his side failed to beat Shamrock Rovers in the Airtricity League on Tuesday night. “I think, the way the game went, if anybody was going to win it would have been us. I think we got the bulk of  the chances. We'd probably be a bit disappointed we didn't pick up the three points but it's a point gained. We are second in the table and moving along”

Buckley, who revealed that striker Anto Flood missed the game because he was sick, was not completely happy with the performance of his side. “For the first 60 to 70 minutes I thought we played well. Certainly in the first half I thought we were well on top. I thought in the last 20 minutes we got a bit scrappy. We played too many long balls and we needed to get it back into feet. I can't fault the effort of anybody. We are in a healthy position at this minute in time.”

The Saints are currently second in the table, three points behind Sligo Rovers. However, their manager believes that there no easy games in a competitive league. “It will be a very competitive league. You only have to look at the weekend’s results, with Sligo getting a draw in Bray and UCD beating Derry. Bearing in mind those are two of the bottom three teams. There are no easy games in the league. If you don't have your foot on the pedal for every game you get turned over. ”

Despite the fact that Pats failed to score against a side which played with 10 men for the last 15 minutes or so, Buckley is not overly concerned. “We'd all like to be scoring more goals. We are creating chances which is the most important thing. If you are not creating chances you are not going to win matches. We just need to get a better return on the amount of chances that we are creating.”