Mathews critical of performance following disappointing Cobh defeat

After watching his side fall to a 3-1 defeat at home to Cobh Ramblers on Saturday night, Longford Town manager Alan Mathews was honest in his assessment of the game.

Mathews wasn’t happy with his side’s performance: “As a whole that performance wasn’t good enough in both boxes; offensively and defensively. We have to make sure we address this.”

What frustrated the Town boss most about the defeat was his side’s contribution to their own downfall. Two of Cobh’s goals came after Town were high up the park and the defence were caught out badly. Mathews said: “We contributed, I believe, to our own downfall by being very loose defensively and they picked us off. They got a break and Paul Skinner made a save from it and we didn’t learn from it. That’s the most disappointing thing.”

Town had a great chance to break the deadlock in the 47^th minute but Enda Curran somehow shot wide with an open goal at his mercy. Town were left to rue that. “We had opportunities to get the first goal and we didn’t take them. You look at the one that fell to Enda, no one in the goal and he puts it wide. We probably need to score when we had good phases of play and when the opportunities were presented to us. We didn’t and it kept them the game and it gave them a lifeline. Fair play to them they took it with both hands.”

Although there’s just two league games played Town find themselves five points behind the early pacesetters. The Town boss is not happy with his side’s points return from the opening two games: “I’m very disappointed with the points return; one point, we should’ve got more last week. We certainly got punished tonight. Coming into the game we would’ve been looking to pick the season up with a win. We didn’t. We can see how we can fix it and go again on Friday.”

Friday sees the Town travel to Athlone to take on their Mildands rivals. Colin Fortune’s side have two wins from two and will be up for the challenge. Mathews is hoping his side can bounce back from the Cobh result against one of Mathews’ former clubs: “From my end of it. The next game can’t come quick enough because I want to make sure we rectify and do our very best to get a positive result from the bad night that we had here tonight.”