Collins targeted Shels 'mental weakness'
Credit: Extratime Team (ETPhotos)
Monaghan United manager Roddy Collins watched his side move within five points of leaders Shelbourne at the top of the Airtricity League First Division table at Tolka Park on Friday night. Collins felt the main difference between the sides was their mental approaches to the game.
He told extratime.ie, “I feel great, I expected before we came down that we’d beat them, there is a weakness in them that I’ve seen, there is a mental weakness there that I knew we could put it right up to them. I thought we could beat them on their own patch. They didn’t have the mettle to come back. They are good players don’t get me wrong, they’re organised, they’re fit but they don’t have that extra bit of mettle that’s required to win these games.”
“When we got the first goal there was a row on the touchline, you won’t see that with our players. If it goes against us they will accept it, we will get on it and we will get back to where we started and take it from there. When you see that(the row on the touchline) that’s a mental weakness, and you see fella’s huddling in the middle of the park before the game that’s a joke, that’s Celtic’s gig, leave it to them. Fella’s huddling in the corner and blasting out bleeding disco music. I didn’t know whether to dance or give a team talk before the game, that’s all mental crap. We’re there, we’re on it, we’re focused, we know what we have do and we work hard to do it and we are getting the rewards for it.”
He went on to explain how his side have the mettle he feels Shelbourne are lacking, he gave the example of last week’s game against Longford Town when his side scored an injury time winner to win 3-2.
“Our lads have the mettle and the balls for it, we’ve seen it last week, (for) 44 minutes against Longford, (we) played really really badly, (we) never gave up the ghost and nicked a winner.”
“Then tonight I thought we played really well in patches, I thought we weathered out the storm when we had to, and possibly could have won by more and should have.”
He emphasised the importance of having the correct mental approach off the pitch too, “I say to the lads don’t look at tables or don’t listen to people or permutations.”
Collins looked ahead to Tuesday’s game against third placed Cork City who trail United by a single point, saying, “We are going to Cork on Tuesday night and we’re going down there to win, that’s what we are going to Cork for. So if you win your games you’re looking with two games to go we could be a point off Shels, if they keep winning their games, it’s all game on then, that’s the most important thing. You start off to try and win a league, whatever comes after that is a bonus.”
The ex Bohs and Shamrock Rovers boss said his side were injury free ahead of Tuesday’s match “We’ve no injuries and we have (Paul) Whelan back.”
He also spoke about the improvement in his side over the season and the reasons for that “We started off with nothing, people talk about Monaghan getting promoted last year but the team that played last year in the play-off final six left and one retired, so it’s a brand new team and out of the squad I started with there are five of them gone. I said to the lads tonight, you know when you know, if you’ve won titles as a player or a manager, you know when you know it’s right and it’s now and at his particular point in time we are red hot on it.”
“We’ve added players to the squad, tonight we could have changed the team in four or five different ways, when we came here the last time we had kids on the bench, we had a sixteen year old and fifteen year old on the bench and when we were making a change, we were making a change and then a tactical change to go with the sub we put on. It wasn’t like for like. Whereas at the moment, we’ve two big men(up front), we’ve found that we’ve Keith Quinn who can come in and master a game, it gave us the option to go five across the middle for the last ten minutes, it just gives us more options.”
“The lads know the craic, we’ve seen and played everyone, we’ve only lost to two teams, one was a dubious loss against Shelbourne but in fairness we took the points off them here in an open game. And the other two was Mervue twice which was one of those days.”
“We know what we have we have a great bunch of lads and they are not playing for money, and that’s the most enjoyable thing for me, the amount of work and the work ethic that they have, there is no pressure on them. You see from the finish of Seanie Brennan, that’s not a pressure player is it? So they have a bit of freedom and it’s brilliant, it’s just a great bunch of lads.”
He referred to the recent fine and suspension he received from the FAI for comments he made earlier in the season (the fine was subsequently halved and the suspension lifted), “It’s a great club as well because they let you do what you do and they back you, they are backing me to the hilt in everything that’s going on, and they are very honest people they tell you what they’ve got and what they haven’t got and I just love honesty, the players are honest and I’ll be as honest as the whole lot of them.”
Collins had said prior to Friday’s game that some pundits thought ”all Shels have to do to win the championship is to turn up for their remaining games” when asked about that comment he replied “I think most of the Shels players thought that, most of the Shels fans thought that as well.”
I asked him did he have a response to those pundits following his side’s win “I don’t have to say anything just look at the paper in the morning and see the result. I think it was 2-1! The result speaks volumes, you hear different people say they (Shelbourne) only need so many points to win the league, that’s great, well go and get them. We know what we have to do we have to go and win.”
“We can beat anyone, we can beat anyone, you see that performance tonight in Tolka Park, we can beat anyone, it’s not arrogance, we can beat anyone, we’ve a great squad of players, they are on it, red hot on it, we can beat anyone in this league and we intend to do that.”
