Draw a fair result according to Mahon

Drogheda United manager Pete Mahon was pleased to see his side come from behind twice to earn a hard-fought 2-2 draw against UCD on Friday night.

Eoin Kirwan and Sam O’Connor both equalised for Drogheda after Ryan Swan and Gary O’Neil had twice given the hosts the lead, but Mahon was satisfied with his young side’s overall display at The UCD Bowl.

Speaking to ExtraTime.ie reporter Dave Donnelly he said, “Obviously going behind twice and coming back twice against UCD is a fair achievement. It was a good game with both teams trying to play. The big pitch kind of caught us out a bit because our ground is a bit tighter than here but we’re happy enough to come back from a goal down on two occasions and come out of here with a draw because normally you’d be looking not to lose here.

“They put a lot of pressure on us in the end but we weathered the storm and kept a clean sheet in the second half.”

Mahon, who previously managed UCD, knows his Drogheda side will have to improve defensively if they are to mount a serious challenge for promotion and was critical of some sloppy defending but was relieved to see his team among the goals again.

“I wouldn’t be happy with the second goal we gave away. I know it took a deflection but we were messing around at the back when we had a few chances to clear the ball.

“We haven’t been scoring the amount of goals I think our overall play deserves. We played Limerick last week and funnily enough I thought we played better last week. I thought we could’ve easily got a draw from the game, it was probably our best performance of the season so I was hoping it wasn’t going to be a bit of a downer here tonight, but apart from the first 15 minutes I thought we played well and I think UCD played well, so overall a draw was a fair result.”

The draw leaves Drogheda in fifth place in the SSE Airtricity League First Division, already 12 points behind league leaders Limerick and Mahon concedes that the play-offs probably represents their best chance of promotion but is also conscious of the inexperience within his squad.

“We gave them (Limerick) probably the hardest game they’ve had, having said that you can see that their well tutored, being full-time is a huge advantage in this league so it was important not to lose again tonight because I reckon that it will be Limerick and UCD and ourselves and Shelbourne for third place.

“We’ve a very young team, something like the UCD lads, we’re probably even younger than them. If you took Sean Brennan out of that team tonight, the average age is 19, so I’m just hoping that they don’t get burnout towards the end of the season. Having said that there’s only 28 games which is probably a help as well but we have to monitor the training and the recovery very closely.

“To be fair to the lads, they’re a very good bunch of young players who haven’t had a chance maybe at other League of Ireland clubs and have a bit of a point to prove. I’ve been very happy with them so far. I think really we could’ve had another three points in the first round of matches, nine points is not really the return I was hoping for and that we deserved, I thought we should’ve beaten Athlone and I thought we should’ve beaten Cobh as well.”