Pride at stake for Henderson
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Waterford United kept their play-off hopes alive after an exhilarating 3-2 victory against Athlone Town in the RSC on Friday evening. Two goals in an astonishing last ten minutes from Paul Walsh and skipper Kevin Murray secured the much needed win.
That late winning goal has set Waterford United up with an intriguing final day trip to Tolka Park. A win for Stephen Henderson’s side will guarantee a home play-off fixture against Shelbourne or Monaghan United, whereas a draw would still guarantee a definite play-off spot.
Henderson feels his side have a score to settle with Shelbourne after the Dubliners easily beat the Blues 3-0 in the RSC in the second series of matches. “They’re absolutely buzzing and now it’s ‘bring on Shelbourne’. There’s a lot of pride at stake in terms of what happened us down here when we played Shels. We played poorly in the second half and they scored three goals. We feel we didn’t do ourselves justice, didn’t do the club justice and didn’t do the supporters justice, so it’s an opportunity to put it right next week.
Henderson was a very relieved man at the end of the game after their 93rd minute winning goal. “It’s not the way I would have liked to have won the game, I’m still breathless from it, but the relief at the end was immense. We played an a lot of very good football tonight, we scored three goals, created loads of chances but the heads never went down, and twice we came back tonight and we were fantastic.”
“We created a lot of chances. Our wide players tonight were excellent. Then Walshy [Paul Walsh] comes on and scores a great goal. The only downside is Vinny [Sullivan] is after dislocating his shoulder so he’s gone for a few weeks, that’s the only downside from tonight.”
Henderson described as ‘sick’ the felling with his team losing 2-1 with just six minutes to go, despite creating numerous chances. “I was sick, because we didn’t deserve to be 2-1 down. But if we give away sloppy goals than possibly we did deserve it. The goal we gave away was a sloppy goal. Then the second goal we gave away, that was another sloppy goal. That’s something we don’t do, and something we’re going to have to eradicate if we’re serious about getting up into the Premier Division.”
The Blues boss was happy with his side’s tally of wins in the final series of matches. “That’s the second series of games where we have eight wins in the games; we matched that in the first series of games too. In the middle series of games, the games we lost we had Kevin Murray out, Seamus Long out and John Hayes out, we had no defenders. When we have a full squad we’re one of the best, if not the best, team in the league. We just didn’t have the bodies to cope.”
Blues captain Kevin Murray popped up with the winning goal in the third minute of stoppage and his manager explained his reasoning for sending the centre-back up field for the remaining minutes. “Kevin Murray is prolific up front as you know, so that’s why we sent him up”, Henderson joked.
That late winning goal has set Waterford United up with an intriguing final day trip to Tolka Park. A win for Stephen Henderson’s side will guarantee a home play-off fixture against Shelbourne or Monaghan United, whereas a draw would still guarantee a definite play-off spot.
Henderson feels his side have a score to settle with Shelbourne after the Dubliners easily beat the Blues 3-0 in the RSC in the second series of matches. “They’re absolutely buzzing and now it’s ‘bring on Shelbourne’. There’s a lot of pride at stake in terms of what happened us down here when we played Shels. We played poorly in the second half and they scored three goals. We feel we didn’t do ourselves justice, didn’t do the club justice and didn’t do the supporters justice, so it’s an opportunity to put it right next week.
Henderson was a very relieved man at the end of the game after their 93rd minute winning goal. “It’s not the way I would have liked to have won the game, I’m still breathless from it, but the relief at the end was immense. We played an a lot of very good football tonight, we scored three goals, created loads of chances but the heads never went down, and twice we came back tonight and we were fantastic.”
“We created a lot of chances. Our wide players tonight were excellent. Then Walshy [Paul Walsh] comes on and scores a great goal. The only downside is Vinny [Sullivan] is after dislocating his shoulder so he’s gone for a few weeks, that’s the only downside from tonight.”
Henderson described as ‘sick’ the felling with his team losing 2-1 with just six minutes to go, despite creating numerous chances. “I was sick, because we didn’t deserve to be 2-1 down. But if we give away sloppy goals than possibly we did deserve it. The goal we gave away was a sloppy goal. Then the second goal we gave away, that was another sloppy goal. That’s something we don’t do, and something we’re going to have to eradicate if we’re serious about getting up into the Premier Division.”
The Blues boss was happy with his side’s tally of wins in the final series of matches. “That’s the second series of games where we have eight wins in the games; we matched that in the first series of games too. In the middle series of games, the games we lost we had Kevin Murray out, Seamus Long out and John Hayes out, we had no defenders. When we have a full squad we’re one of the best, if not the best, team in the league. We just didn’t have the bodies to cope.”
Blues captain Kevin Murray popped up with the winning goal in the third minute of stoppage and his manager explained his reasoning for sending the centre-back up field for the remaining minutes. “Kevin Murray is prolific up front as you know, so that’s why we sent him up”, Henderson joked.
About Brendan White
Brendan White is Extratime News Editor and is responsible for the news section of Extratime.ie. Brendan also covers matches in Dublin and Waterford. You can contact Brendan on twitter @whitebrendan. View Full Profile