After suffering a heavy defeat to table-toppers Waterford seven days earlier, Cobh Ramblers manager Stephen Henderson was pleased with how his charges bounced back to take the points with a 2-0 win over Wexford FC at Ferrycarrig Park on Friday evenin
After suffering a heavy defeat to table-toppers Waterford seven days earlier, Cobh Ramblers manager Stephen Henderson was pleased with how his charges bounced back to take the points with a 2-0 win over Wexford FC at Ferrycarrig Park on Friday evening.
“After last week, when you lose 4-0 regardless of the circumstances you're a little bit nervous of how the lads will react. We changed the team around, a few lads made their debut and did very, very well I have to say,” he said.
With goal scorers James McSweeney and Beneoin O'Brien Whitmarsh having a combined age of just 33 and other fresh faces in the side it's evident that Henderson isn't afraid to give youth a chance.
“Young Beneoin has come on and he's just informed me that's seven goals in four games in all competitions. Young Cian Leonard before him was fantastic as well up front, a position where we're struggling because all our forwards are injured or have left.
"Those two kids came in and were brilliant and young Kev Taylor at left back was as well,” he said.
However, Henderson admitted his side needed to be more ruthless when they were a goal up and their opponents were reduced to nine men, although he did have plenty of praise for the attitude of the Wexford players in adversity.
“I thought we were better when we were playing against eleven. When they went down to nine men they were a different animal. They seemed to get an extra 15 or 20 per cent from somewhere.
"They ran their hearts out and they were great. But we had to make better decisions when we're playing against nine men. Unfortunately we didn't do that but we wrapped it up at the end and it's three points,” said the Cobh Ramblers boss.
Despite making hard work of it with a late goal from Beneoin O'Brien Whitmarsh finally sealing the dealing, Henderson was happy to get a precious win on the board as they try to hang on to the coat tails of league leaders Waterford FC, who have a nine-point cushion at the summit.
“We just said to the lads before the match, we've seven games, one series to go. Let's treat it as a new league and see how far we can go. That's three points and we move on to Longford next week.
"If we keep focusing on Waterford that gap will look bigger, so we'll just look at ourselves, try to win as many games as we can. That's one down and we've six to go, starting with Longford. It's another huge cup final for us so we'll go out and see how that goes,” he said.
