Scully happy to be back on track

Limerick returned to winning ways on Friday night after their first visit to Fahy’s Field saw them leave the Galway venue with all three points and a first away win of the season against a disappointing Mervue Utd side who had started the season so well.

First Division joint leaders Cork City only managed a draw at Fahy’s Field and Division favourites Shelbourne escaped with a narrow 2-1 win from the east Galway venue, indicating that this could have been a tricky game for a promotion chasing Limerick side.

But Limerick boss Pat Scully was delighted to have put the previous week’s home defeat to Wexford behind them as he told extratime.ie after the game on Friday night. “It was a very good result, I thought we started the game very well, particularly the first 25 minutes when we looked very sharp and got the early goal. We created several good chances and could have had a couple of more goals. If I was critical I suppose we could have scored a few more with the chances we created but I’m delighted with the win”.

“Mervue have improved and are a decent team this year having brought in the likes of Tom King from Galway Utd and improved their squad in general and this is a tough place to come. But we attacked well and defended very well and we were very comfortable. We had a bad result against Wexford and people look at that and think you could cave in but we bounced back with a good performance”.

“I thought we were very strong tonight having changed our system from last week with Stephen O’Flynn and Peter Hynes playing up front with Paudie Quinn in behind them and our confidence and attitude levels were very good from the start.  Pat Purcell was magnificent for us at the back and he did well on Rory Gaffney, who is a tough player and a handful, but I thought Pat handled him well”.

On making three changes from the defeat to Wexford Scully commented “A couple of players haven’t started the season as well as they can and with a few injuries, particularly to Gary Sheehan, and suspension to Stephen O’Flynn we have been scratchy. We need consistency now but if we continue to play like we did tonight we’ll have no problems”.

On O’Flynn’s two goals Scully said ”Stephen is a top player and he can get better and fitter. It was unfortunate he missed the first four games of the season and the two goals will do him the world of good, as will the 90 minutes as we need to get his fitness levels up, but I thought he took his two chances well”.

Limerick now have a break from league action next week, a situation which Scully believes is not ideal for First Division clubs. “Where does that happen in any other European league? And it’s disappointing for the image of the league and maybe they could have brought one club up or re-jigged the league or something. But we have just got to get on with it as what can we do? Every team is going to have to deal it with over the season. We have a cup game against Waterford on the Monday so we don’t really have a free weekend, just Friday night off”.

On the subject of the top of the First Division table, which is rapidly compacting, Scully thinks, “You will get a much clearer picture after ten games. It’s been a really hard league to get out off for the last two seasons and much more competitive than the Premier Division, with a lot of good teams. But I think we are a good team and if we play to our levels we can do well”.