Hughes rues Shels failure to hold on

With 85 minutes gone, it looked like Philly Hughes had got Shels a valuable home win against promotion rivals Limerick- slotting the ball past Blues ‘keeper Barry Ryan from a seemingly impossible angle. A Paudie Quinn equaliser a minute into stoppage time deprived Hughes of that honour, but he said afterwards that Shels “probably deserved to win it”.

“In the second half I thought we were much better” said Hughes. “I thought we deserved to go in front- we just couldn’t see it out though. Just maybe [but for] a lack of concentration, we could have got all three points.” Limerick played an effective counter-attacking game which saw them dominate the first half through closing the Shels players down quickly when they didn’t have the ball. Hughes acknowledges that the Reds were overwhelmed in the opening half. “In the first half they were all over us and we couldn’t get going.”

But Shels turned the tables on the Shannonsiders in the second half, says Hughes. “In the second half we did to them what they did to us in the first half- we closed them down and went about our business. I thought we were the better side in the second half and probably just deserved to win it.”

The former Monaghan United, Kildare County and Dundalk player returned to Shels this season after making eight appearances for the Drumcondra side under Dermot Keely in 2008. Hughes says he is delighted to be back with Shels and hopes to increase his scoring tally- which currently stands at two in the league. “It was great when Alan [Mathews] gave me the call, I was only delighted to come down” he says. “I just want to start banging in the goals now, hopefully they’ll keep coming.”