Feeney injury a worry for Connor

The clock had not ticked beyond the ten minute mark on Friday night when Galway United boss Sean Connor watched helplessly as one of his newest signings, Steve Feeney, was helped to the dressing rooms after picking up a nasty looking ankle injury.

Already without right back Shaun Kelly due to illness, a major reshuffle was implemented which required three players to take up new positions to accommodate the introduction of substitute Brian Cash up front. Speaking afterwards, Connor admitted fears that Feeney may be out for some time.

"To be honest, it’s not looking good. He’s going to get x-rayed in the morning (Saturday). The worst case scenario is he’s probably done damage to the ligaments and there’s possibly a slight fracture there because he did hear a crack," Connor said.

"It’s not what I need because we’re thin enough on cover in defence as it is and Stevie’s a utility player; he can play up front, he can play at the back. He’s worked hard to come and play here and suddenly that’s happened. It’s a kick in the teeth for him and for myself."

Regarding the positional switches which followed, the manager felt it was the right course of action given the lack of experience available to him on the bench, even though it affected his tactics for the rest of the contest.

"We had a couple of strikers on the bench, we had young Gary Kelly, so it was the only real option as such. It had an impact because we had a certain gameplan and a certain way of playing and, to be honest with you, Gary Curran would have been very, very important in the middle of the park.

"I would have liked Alan Murphy to be doing his work closer to the box. If you seen in that early period when he was in and around there, Murphy will get shots and he’ll score goals. I think for his first game back as well, having him playing in the engine room wasn’t exactly the best for him. For ten minutes after that reshuffle we were out of sorts."

In an overall sense though, Connor took encouragement from a performance that garnered the club's first point of the season while also highlighting some of the problems that may hinder him in his attempts to better last season's eighth-placed finish.

"We’re improving but there are still some improvements to make. There’s still three or four of the boys in Dublin who we haven’t got up (training) all the time. They might come up once every fortnight. That’s our problem and it’s going to be our problem until we can address the budget and get players with us who can be with us every day.

"I think there’s been steady progress made and the positives tonight is that the keeper has shown how good he is and we’ve kept a clean sheet. To be fair to the players they kept plugging away even when they were running on empty in the last ten minutes. I think that’s what the public want to see and I think anyone who knows me, I don’t think I’ve managed a team yet who have given up or don’t work hard or dig in.

"It takes a while sometimes to get that ethos into players, especially young players. Young Paul Smith came off the bench tonight, and he now knows how difficult it is to play at this level. It’s very, very easy sometimes to sit within a squad and think 'oh, I should be playing' and suddenly when you’re given that chance you come off the park and think 'hey, that was quicker, that was harder than I thought it was'.

"A lot of players learn that. Enda Curran is another one. It’s a big, big jump from the First Division and he’s seen that himself. He made the mistake last week and that cost us the game. He’s another work in progress. If they listen and learn from the good players that are around them, and listen to the staff, then we’ll produce some good players.