Fenlon - No fear in Bohs camp

A Dublin derby is the single match many Bohs fans look forward to, and manager Pat Fenlon will give those fans some comfort with his confidence ahead of the latest edition of the Bohs - Rovers saga. Speaking to Extratime.ie after the Gypsies won 1-0 at home against UCD, Fenlon spoke of the need to "adapt" to face Rovers but said that there was "no fear" in the Bohs camp.

"We coped well enough with them here in the first game," Fenlon said of the side's last meeting, a 1-1 draw at Dalymount in April. "We'll have to adapt our game, but we won't be adapting it to just go there and sit back." The goal for Fenlon is a simple one, and fear doesn't come into it. "We're going to go there and try win the game, that's the plan. "I don't think we've anything to fear, I think the players have shown [that] over the season. We've played everybody, there's no fear of any of the teams we play against."

Glenn Cronin and Christy Fagan made their first starts since recovering from injuries on Friday night and both had impressive roles in a win which probably should have been greater on the balance of shots in the second half. Fenlon was understandably pleased with his returning players, but went on to say that the relative lack of depth of his squad forced his hand. "If we had more players we probably wouldn't have started them, but the two of them have come in and [done well]" Fenlon said. "Ideally we would have mulled over whether to play them from the start or give them another half an hour, but we're not in a position to do that. I thought the two lads did quite well, we probably would have left Glenn on if he hadn't been on a yellow card. But he's out a long time- he'd be six months out this week. He gets tired, he could have been late into a tackle and we'd lose him for Monday. It's just important that he and Christy got through sixty-odd minutes."

Bohs still have players of the calibre of Ollie Cahill to come back into the squad and while Fenlon says that he would welcome having more fit players, he also sees that the youth players who have deputised for them mustn't be forgotten. "It'll help us," the Bohs manager said of the imminent return of more first team members, "[but] it doesn't mean that we'll discard the young lads because they've all been great."

Some of those youth players were rested on Friday night, and Fenlon didn't rule out recalling them for the derby. "I was delighted to be able to give Stephen Traynor a bit of a break tonight because he's played every game and as a young fella coming into the team that's difficult to do. It'll freshen him up, he may come back into the tram for Monday night. Other lads have come in- Keith Buckley, Christopher Forrester, Lee Dixon and Gary Burke- they've all done well over the last few games."

Fenlon is firm in his belief that those youth players represent the future for a club with its own fair share of financial problems "That's the future for us, we can't go out and get players, we've got to introduce them slowly. I think what helps is having the senior and more experienced players so you don't have to throw three or four in together. we can blood one or two at a time."