Salthill "gutted" by play-off cancellation

Tonight was meant to be a shot at the big time for Salthill Devon. A chance to pit their wits against League opposition and prove that as a footballing side they were worthy of promotion to the First Division. Having pushed an experienced Shamrock Rovers side to the wire in the Newstalk A Championship Final, losing by a single, agonisingly late goal, today's news that Kildare County will not be fulfilling their duties in the relegation/promotion play-off has come as a further blow to the Galway club.

Devon boss Emlyn Long told extratime.ie about his feelings on the late postponement.

"Well to be honest we, and the players in particular, are all gutted that the games are not going ahead," Long stated. "When we won our group we said it was great to have three cup finals, the A Championship final and the two play-off games.

"We were able to rebound quite quickly from the loss to Rovers knowing that there were two even bigger games around the corner. We were quietly confident of beating Kildare over the two legs but that’s immaterial now. On a personal note I really am sorry to see another club go out of business. We played Kildare at U21 level a few years ago and they were a good side and seemed to have good people behind the scenes.

"Having heard how the club pulled together to fulfil the Shels game we had hoped that they would be able to do something similar for the two fixtures this week – unfortunately they weren’t but hopefully we will see them back again."

Much has been written recently about the value of having three senior teams in the Galway city environs, but Long has only his own club's best interests at heart and has more pressing concerns about the proposition of a season in the First Division.

"It’s not for us to say, and personally I think our club should be asking itself a totally different question. Is Salthill Devon FC capable of competing at first division level, on an amateur basis, with a team of predominately home-grown players?

"The fact that we fielded a team in the A Championship final with eight of the starting 11, and 12 of the 16, having played with Salthill since they began playing football is very positive in this regard. Especially when you think that we were only narrowly beaten by a Shamrock Rovers side including eight or nine players who have played Premier Division football this season."

Long also revealed that a definitive decision had not yet been made by the club as to whether they would take up the option that is now open to them.

"We will give the lads a few days to gather their thoughts and we will meet on Friday evening to discuss it from a purely team and management perspective. The club committee will have the final say, obviously, but I plan to bring the players and management thoughts to them in the next week or so.

"I’m not an expert on the licensing requirements but I’m sure we will know this in the coming weeks – from what I understand though we are not a million miles away from fulfilling the criteria. As regards where we plan to play our home games next season, whatever league that is in, we have a home ground that we are all very proud of and as always our preferred option would be to play our home games in the Drom."

*Salthill Devon's League of Ireland campaign is not quite finished yet, though, as their U20 side take on Drogheda United in the semi-final of the competition this coming Sunday in United Park.