Mathews takes positives from draw
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Shelbourne manager Alan Mathews told Extratime.ie that he was disappointed that his side conceded a late goal against FAI Cup winners Sligo Rovers at Tolka Park on Friday night, but was also keen to take some positives from the 1-1 draw.
“We are very disappointed to concede the goal as late as we did from a set play which we should have dealt with, but overall much more positives to take from the game. There are a lot of positives to take from the way we played, the way we worked and we kept our shape. We played against a very very good Sligo team. We took the lead. We should have kept the ball a little bit better in the second half. We'll iron things out as we go along. There is plenty to look forward to for the rest of the season.”
Mathews was not happy with how his side defended Jason McGuinness's injury time equalizer for Sligo.
“We should have been able to deal with it and that's disappointing. If it was from open play you could look at where people got taken out of position or didn't track runners but with a set play people have specific jobs to do. You play the game for 90 odd minutes not just 90 and we were into the 92nd minute when we gave it up. Overall though there was a lot more positives to take from it than negatives.”
The Shelbourne boss praised the performance of his players and goalscorer Phillip Hughes.
“Philip (Hughes) got a bad knock early in the game which did prohibit his movement somewhat. He still has great qualities. His free kick was a superb strike. If we had just been able to get round him quicker in the second half I felt we might have been able to exploit them and get that second goal. Philly put a great shift in as did every other player. We were missing players through injury including Stephen Paisley, Kevin Dawson, Paul Byrne and Anto Murphy. So we have a lot of guys that are on the fringes of the side not playing for various reasons and hopefully when they come back soon we will have good competition for places.”
Mathews, who was happy to see such a big crowd at Tolka Park on Friday night, revealed some of his ambitions for the season.
“We will try and be competitive week-in week-out and to win as many games as we can. We will insure that we will do our very best to get people to come back to Tolka Park and support the club. There was a very good crowd here tonight. Individually and collectively we have set objectives to the players as a group, but what we really want to be is competitive week-in week-out, win games, play good football and see where that takes us.”
