Easter Review: Rovers 0-0 UCD / Fingal 1-1 Rovers
The two games over the Easter weekend won’t live long in the memory of any Hoops fan, a tally of two points against the two newly promoted teams doesn’t scream title-challenge, though the Fingal game offered much more hope of a recovery than a tepid game with UCD.
First to the game at Tallaght against the Students. Rovers were thoroughly outplayed for much of the game, the Belfield side played some fantastic football it must be said, thanks largely to the superb Bolger pulling the strings in central midfield. MON has a knack of signing players who perform against Rovers, I don’t think there’d be any complaints if Bolger became a Hoop at some stage in the future. He was superb, but the whole UCD side showed so much more spirit and vigour than a listless Hoops.
Again for Rovers there was nothing offered creatively. After a promising start Billy Dennehy has just about disappeared. Early in the UCD game Dennehy skint his fullback for sheer pace, knocking the ball past him and comfortably out running him. Not once for the rest of the game did he try to repeat the trick. Defensively too Dennehy was extremely poor, allowing UCD to play the ball down his wing time and time again, barely putting a foot in against the opposing full-back and winger. Having Enda Stevens behind him didn’t help either, the ex-Pats man had a nightmare, looking completely bereft of confidence, hiding from the ball at every opportunity. When substituted it was interesting to note he raced off the pitch, he simply didn’t want to be out there in front of the extremely negative Rovers fans.
The Good Friday clashed was also the debut for new signing Tommy Stewart, and saw a return to 4-4-2. It wasn’t much of a debut for the ex-Derry City and Linfield man, who missed a glorious opportunity from a Sean O’Connor cross and showed a distinct lack of match practice. Let’s hope it was just a lack of match practice anyway.
On the plus side Mannus again made a crucial stop at the death to save a point. The jury had been out on Mannus, but for me the debate is closed, the guy is a good LoI goalkeeper. I make that 5 big saves already this season, and though he should have done better for the first goal against Pats, he’s certainly saved us more points than he’s cost us. Barry Murphy’s lost his place at Bohs already, and I’m very confident that we’ll have the better number one when going up against Bohemians and Chris O’Connor next Friday night.
The final whistle against UCD was greeted with boos, and Rovers never ever looked like winning that game, they never had the appetite to win it. It was interesting to note MON’s comments afterwards about how players have had the opportunity to stake their claim to a place in the side, but were failing. Luckily that changed against Fingal, when a much improved Hoops side were desperately unlucky not to win.
The side reverted to 4-5-1 and MON made a number of changes, partly due to missing a massive 6 first teamers. That shouldn’t be forgotten, Fingal are a very good side who outplayed a full strength Bohs side earlier in the season, to have so many absentees and still dominate the game shows clear signs of progress, even if we’re not where at where we hoped we’d be.
For me Man of the Match was Aidan Price, who was restored to the team with Craig Sives at right back. Aido was superb in extremely difficult conditions. The first half was, like the Pats game, virtually unplayable due to the wind. Price coped fantastically in very tough conditions any time the ball was awkwardly played towards him, and he was confident and domineering enough to come well out of his set position to deal with awkward balls to cut them out before they could pose a threat. Price’s form has been a revelation in recent months, he is genuinely now one of the better centre halves in the league, a fantastic turn around a sign that he’s worked extremely hard to improve his game. My only gripe with that is that it made the signing of Dan Murray pointless, Sives and Price proved a fine combination last year and could have continued that and offered continuity. A third-choice back-up centre back would have been a better option to replace Darragh Maguire. Murray again struggled more than Price, though he wasn’t bad, he still is turned incredibly easy.
Other stand out performers were Danny Murphy at left back who’s tenacious tackling and good distribution in very difficult conditions was superb. We have to stop chopping and changing, Murphy should be the starting left-back and Enda Stevens should focus on improving his game with the “A-Team”. In front of him Ollie Cahill was also great, the Tipp man’s form has been very good so far this season, he was perhaps Rovers most dangerous midfield option, whilst also producing one of the tackles of the season in the second half. Chris Turner had a promising debut considering his lack of football, whilst Chambers played very well as the ‘support-striker’ behind Tommy Stewart, also hitting a fine free-kick and of course the crucial penalty.
For me Robert Bayly has not done enough to show why he was signed, and I’m very worried by the signing of both him and Stewart. Both to me seem panic-buys, Stewart’s first touch was awful against Fingal and his work rate nowhere near the shift put in by Barrett. Bayly overcomplicates most things he does, always looking for a flashy touch or trick for little reason. Rice, Chambers, Turner, Bradley mean we’ve more than enough cover in that position. Besides, Bayly’s temper and attitude mean he’d be a complete liability in a game such as the Bohs derby. Hopefully Stewart and Bayly are both on short-term contracts and can be moved on once we get our full compliment back, if either were considered good long-term options why weren’t they picked up on a free transfer in pre-season?
Unlike the Pats game though Rovers coped extremely well with the difficult conditions, we moved the ball better and smarter, there was an added bite back in the team. Although we should have won the game, one of the most encouraging moments came right at the death when the Fingal keeper was doing some ridiculous time-wasting. Instead of looking meek and beaten as they had done at all previous games this season, Dan Murray and Stephen Rice were apoplectic, screaming at Buttimer to get the game moving again (which he responded with a pathetic shrug of his shoulders). At full time James Chambers belted the ball down the pitch when Buttimer wanted it back.
Finally, a bit of life from those who should be roaring this team to greater heights, Murray and Rice. And considering who’s coming up on Friday, it might be perfect timing to see a bit of ferocity return.
KOH
