Fenlon hails strong squad display

Pat Fenlon emerged from the away dressing room at the UCD Bowl on Tuesday night delighted to have won a match which his side could easily have lost.

A goal down to a Greg Bolger penalty, subs Jason Byrne and Raf Cretaro salvaged the win with two stunning strikes from outside the penalty box in the final ten minutes after Bolger had been sent off.

“I’m delighted with the result”, Fenlon said. “It’s a tough place to come and win a match, I thought we deserved to win the game, we had the more chances in it and played quiet well so I was happy enough with the points, because it’s not an easy place to get them.”

With UCD employing a 4-5-1 formation and packing the midfield, it made life difficult for Bohs, but Fenlon paid credit to the young opponents.

“They did, but they also got a lot forward when they tried to get forward. In fairness they are not a defensive team, they try to pass the ball around in the right way”, he said.

“Coming here is always difficult, just like when I was here a player it was always difficult. People expect Bohs to come to UCD and win comfortably but it never works out like that, so that puts a bit more pressure on you when people are expecting you to win.”

Fenlon knows that teams will often up their game when the champions visit, but knows his squad can overcome it. “That’s what you get when you’re with the top teams and win things”, Fenlon said. “Every game is a cup final for the opposition and that’s fair enough. The players we have brought here are well able to handle it, they’ve handled it over a period in their careers so I’ve no problem with that at all. UCD went to Drogheda last week and won comfortably so they are a decent team.” Bohs called Jason Byrne and Raf Cretaro to come off the bench to both score in the space of a less than a minute to hand Bohs the victory. Fenlon knows the quality which these players and all his squad possess. “We’ve got real quality everywhere, we’ve got three lads sitting in the stand tonight that would probably get into most teams”, he said. “We have a lot of matches though, I think we have 8 in April alone so we need everybody.” “We’ve picked up two or three knocks tonight that may not be available for Friday night so we need a big squad. We’re in a lot of competitions and they are all going to play a part. The good thing from our point of view is that whatever team we do put out is going to be very, very strong.”