Owen Heary was pleased with his players after Shelbourne secured back-to-back wins with a 1-0 victory over Cobh Ramblers at Tolka Park on Friday night. The home side were looking to build on their first win of the season last weekend during a five-g
Owen Heary was pleased with his players after Shelbourne secured back-to-back wins with a 1-0 victory over Cobh Ramblers at Tolka Park on Friday night.
The home side were looking to build on their first win of the season last weekend during a five-goal thriller with Longford Town, and they managed to do so through David O’Sullivan’s fourth strike of the season on the stroke of half-time.
Heary was happy to walk away with the three points after Cobh caused his team some problems.
“I thought they were very good on the counter attack; they were sitting in hoping that we commit bodies forward and then manage to catch us on the counter.
“It was something we worked on all week; we knew were the space was when they played three at the back and they sat in as a five and made it difficult to break down.
“The first half I thought we didn’t move the ball quick enough so we had a little word with them and in the second half they moved it a little bit quicker, but we had something to defend.”
One sight Heary would not have been happy to see was the influential Alan Byrne leave the field injured during the first half. However, he lavished praise on his replacement 18-year-old Arran Molloy.
“He’s a loss for us, there’s no doubt because he wins a lot of headers and he’s talkative on the pitch but young Arran came in and doesn’t look out of place. He’s a young boy but he’s a strong physical lad and he doesn’t mind getting on the ball. He’s a born defender so thankfully we have youngfellas like him on the bench who can come in.”
Heary also spoke highly of James English who had to settle for a position out wide after teammate O’Sullivan was give the nod upfront. English took the challenge in his stride, however, to put in an impressive display.
“Jamie was unlucky to lose out tonight. We had a look at it during the week and seen when Cobh commit bodies forward, the space is down the sides. We knew we could probably get in that way and the more the game opened up, the more chances James got,” Heary concluded.
