St. Patrick’s Athletic boss Liam Buckley was slightly surprised by the ease of their Friday night victory over rock bottom Bray Wanderers. Saints ran out 5-0 winners at Richmond Park and the margin could have been wider as the Seagulls offered littl
St. Patrick’s Athletic boss Liam Buckley was slightly surprised by the ease of their Friday night victory over rock bottom Bray Wanderers. Saints ran out 5-0 winners at Richmond Park and the margin could have been wider as the Seagulls offered little in an attacking sense and struggled to keep their hosts out of their box. “No, I didn’t expect it [to be so one-sided],” Buckley confessed to reporters after the game. “Look at the players they have: Conor Kenna, Aaron Greene, Gary McCabe and Paul O’Conor. They have a lot of quality in their group but they’re just missing a little bit of confidence. “From our end, we’ve performed really well in the last few weeks and hopefully this result will act as a benchmark for us going forward.” With Saints leading 3-0 at half-time the game was effectively finished as a contest long before the final whistle, and Buckley is hoping to see further improvements in how his side play. “I just want to see us playing better,” he added. “I thought we were okay tonight and we played really well last week and if we keep playing like that we’ll get our fair share of results that will push us up the table. “Ultimately there’s probably five or six teams who will fancy themselves to get into the top four so it will be difficult but if we keep playing like we have been I have no doubt that we’ll pick up our fair share of points.” Pat’s found themselves five goals to the good with still half an hour to play and could have added more to their tally, but Buckley insists there was no conscious decision made to ease off on their opponents. “It wouldn’t be on my end. At five tonight it would have taken a miracle for them to come back and win 6-5 and we had made a couple of substitutions to keep players fresh for Monday and next Friday. “I would prefer for us to go and get as many as we possibly can because goal difference could be the difference at the end of the season.” Two big tests await Buckley’s men in the next week, with Dundalk visiting Inchicore in the EA Sports Cup on Monday before they travel to Turners Cross to face Cork City on Friday.
