Gary Shaw: ‘You aren’t going to start talking about performances. It’s all about the result’

Ahead of Bray Wanderers’ upcoming promotion play-off against Galway United this week, extratime.com caught up with Gary Shaw, the League of Ireland veteran and Seagulls striker, who knows all too well what it is like to play in these types of crucial end-of-season fixtures.

Shaw has a vast amount of experience in the League of Ireland having begun his  career in 2010 with Bray Wanderers followed by spells at Longford Town, Shamrock Rovers, St. Patrick’s Athletic before returning to Bray last season. 

How do you think Bray’s position of fifth in the final table reflects the team’s and your own personal efforts throughout the season?

As a team, given how we did last year just getting pipped for promotion at the line, we are disappointed to finish fifth. We had probably set the target of going to win the league by going one better than we did last year but we obviously fell short of that target.

However, the next best thing was to make sure we get the play offs and we can tick that box. 

We probably didn’t do it in the prettiest of fashion and that’s just the way football goes sometimes. We were unlucky throughout the season with injuries especially at the start which hindered us. We kind of fell away from the pack but went on a really good run from halfway through the season. 

On a personal level, it’s been frustrating as I’ve been up and down with injury. I just couldn’t seem to get myself right at the start of the season even though I was flying in pre-season.

There were glimpses where I was able to contribute to the team and I have gotten plenty of game time under my belt in the last five to six weeks. These upcoming play-offs have come at the right time.

What is the atmosphere like in the dressing room before these fixtures? 

It’s just an exciting time. We will have the fans back in so the game should be fairly spicy. It’s going to be a tough foursome to deal with ourselves, Treaty United, Galway United and UCD - they are four solid teams. It’s just about getting the result whoever it’s against and then going on and tackling whoever we have to face from the Premier Division.

I think that the big thing for us is that we have last year’s experience with the play-offs and build up to play-offs under our belts. A lot of lads haven’t experienced the play-offs before so it was unknown last year.

Anything can happen in them; they are essentially cup finals . It’s just do whatever you can to get over the line. You aren’t going to start talking about performances. It’s all about the result so the lads know what it takes and last year is going to stand to us. 

During your time at Bray which is your favourite season and your most disappointing?

I’ll definitely say my favourite season was my first one when I came to Bray in 2010. Pat Devlin and Keith Long brought me in. They kind of took a gamble on me and it was a gamble that paid off for them.

I had only played in the Leinster Senior League for a few months up until then and I started off flying by scoring on my debut and the next game and I really went from strength to strength.

I started getting involved in the Irish setup and ended staying up with Bray at the end of that season with the famous Promotion/Relegation semi-final game against Monaghan when the wall collapsed at the Carlisle Grounds.

It was full of drama but definitely some great memories and it just gave me that platform to build on in terms of a League of Ireland career which is now in my twelfth season. It was a great place to start and I’m really grateful for Pat and Keith.

2011 was an unfortunate year as I broke my foot twice and had to miss out on a lot of that season as well as missing out on the European Championships with the Irish under-19 team which was a bit of a sickener. 

Who is the toughest defender you’ve come up against?

I’ve been up against a few tough ones in my time. When I first started off I played against a really good Bohemians team in 2010 and I always thought Brian Shelley stood out. I was young and probably speed was my biggest asset at the time and he was very quick. 

At my time with St. Patrick’s Athletic and with Shamrock Rovers we had the pleasure of playing against some of the English clubs that come over to play against League of Ireland teams in pre-season.

When we played Chelsea when I was with St. Pats the back four that day was Cesar Azpilicueta, Andreas Christensen, Kourt Zouma and Marcos Alonso.

I was playing the lone striker role with the four of them ahead of me and as you can imagine I didn’t get a sniff or a kick of the ball but I left the pitch with some good memories and the experience of playing against some fantastic players.

What are your ambitions at Bray for the next few seasons? 

It is definitely to get promoted getting Bray back into the Premier Division and then I can’t really look beyond that now to be honest. 

It’s impossible to have the conversations with anyone about what’s going to happen next year when we don’t know the current status of the club going into next year so we’ll just wait and see. 

Bray have been very good to me and I feel like I’ve been very good to Bray and they are a club that are accommodating with everything.

They’ve looked after me really well. It’s a club I want to stay at but that all completely depends on the outcome of things and we’ll see what the situation is come the end of November and then we can start having that discussion. 

It’s the same at most League of Ireland clubs with one year contracts unless you’re at the top clubs where they can offer extended contracts. 

Bray Wanderers face Galway United this coming Wednesday 3rd November at the Carlisle Grounds in the First Division Promotion semi-final. Kick off is at 7.45pm and you can buy tickets here or watch it live for a fixed price on LOI TV here. 

The Seagulls then travel to Eamonn Deacy Park to face the Tribesmen this Sunday 7th November in the reverse fixture of the play-off with a kick off time of 5pm. Tickets are now on sale following this link and the match can also be viewed on LOI TV.

How the league was won - a detailed look at Shamrock Rovers' 2021 title success https://t.co/yEJAYBauC4pic.twitter.com/7rprTLNJNU

— Extratime.com (@ExtratimeNews) November 1, 2021