League progression not reflected in Aviva

Last Wednesday in the Aviva Stadium, the League of Ireland had an opportunity to showcase the talent which is available to soccer fans week in week out in Ireland. What should have been a proud night for the league, outlining the progress which clubs have made over the last ten years, turned out to be a night of disappointment for all associated within the League of Ireland community.

I began my professional career in Ireland in 2002 after spending five years in the UK. Since that time, the league has progressed year on year and evidence of this has been the steady rise in the leagues UEFA co-efficient.

If you were to look at results in Europe over the last seven years and compared them to Scottish teams, the League of Ireland has outperformed our neighbours. Since Shelbourne played Deportivo La Coruna all the way through to Pats versus Herta Berlin, the league had been gaining some credibility with soccer fans in Ireland.

I never thought a seven goals to one scoreline against probably the biggest club in the world would set the image of the league back some much. It was an exhibition game and people say the result doesn’t matter, whilst this is true, the sheer magnitude of the loss seems to have made the league a laughing stock with the general public who don’t go to matches.

Richard Sadlier made the point after the game that, in order for the league to improve, attendances need to increase dramatically to make the game sustainable in Ireland. I would agree with him on this and I feel this was a missed opportunity to attract new fans of the league. Looking at the presentation after the game, it looks like this will be an annual fixture, let’s hope that next year the result will be much improved and will reflect the quality there is in the domestic game.

The most important soccer match for an Irish team last week wasn’t taking place at the Aviva Stadium, it was on in Italy were Shamrock Rovers faced Italian giants Juventus. Rovers gave a good account of themselves in the first leg in Tallaght and the away fixture was more about keeping the result respectable rather than aspirations of qualifying for the group stages.

In what had to be the worst possible conditions, Michael O’Neill men were unlucky not to come away with at least a draw. It took a moment of magic from one of the best players in European football to win the game for the Italians. Del Piero’s free kick is probably one of the best goals I have seen or likely to see in some time. The three nil scoreline was respectable result for Rovers but more importantly the performance the Rovers players put in over the two legs was excellent.

On Friday, we faced a young Drogheda side in Inchicore. Drogheda had already beaten us three times this season and going into the game there was a slight thought that they could be our bogey team this year (thoughts of Galway part 2).

Thankfully we started well and a brilliant strike from Dave McAllister set us on our way to victory. A second by Derek Doyle sealed the win for us and we stayed top of the table. I came off at half time with a tight hamstring but thankfully it is nothing serious.

With only twelve games left to play in the league, we have been in the top three in the table since the start of the season. We have two games left in the third round and if we manage to get two good results in them games we will have to look at the last round of game with optimism.

With Pete as our manager we won’t be getting carried away, we will just keeping doing what we have done all season, which is focusing on the next game. Bray are our opponents in the Carlisle Grounds on Friday, another win and we will keep top spot in the table.