A despondent Stephen Henderson was left searching for answers after watching his Cobh Ramblers side beaten 4-1 by Drogheda Untied on Saturday evening. In an open game, Ramblers responded quickly to falling behind to an early goal from Drogheda’s Mar
A despondent Stephen Henderson was left searching for answers after watching his Cobh Ramblers side beaten 4-1 by Drogheda Untied on Saturday evening.
In an open game, Ramblers responded quickly to falling behind to an early goal from Drogheda’s Mark Doyle. Stephen Kenny brought the game level after an excellent run and cross from Denzil Fernandes. From here, Ramblers went on to concede three goals that can be attributed to poor defensive errors. Mark Doyle claimed his second after James McSweeney left a free kick pass him in the hope of keeper Adam Mylod claiming. To his credit, Doyle reacted the quickest to poke home. In the second half, Stephen Meaney finished neatly from a free kick into the box while Luke McNally put the icing on the cake for the visitors when he headed home unchallenged from a corner. It was an uncharacteristically poor performance from the Ramblers back line and manager Henderson could not hide his bewilderment after the game.
“The four goals we’re after conceding are awful. I’m not normally stuck for words, but I am now. We’ve worked on the basic elements, but some simple straight balls have taken our whole defence out of the game. I just can’t legislate for that type of stuff and then two set pieces where we don’t mark our men cost us two goals. Where do we go from here? I have to ask that question. We might have to look at our system of play but looking at that is not going to eliminate the basic errors of tonight.”
“I thought in the first half we played some of the best football we have in a long time. We created some good chances, passed the ball well and were having great success down the sides. I thought when we brought it to 1-1, we were going to go on and win the game. Then the second goal happened, and you just don’t see that coming. So, the second half we said let’s just start nice and bright, that’s all the mistakes we’ll make in this game and then we switched off. Time to rip up the book and start again. That’s exactly what we have to do.”
“There is no question we need a few new players. That’s not having a go at the current bunch, but this type of thing is happening too often. If I felt I wasn’t working with them and giving them good information, I’d put my hand up but that’s not the case. We are giving them good information and setting them up well. If it’s not going to be replicated on the pitch, then that’s a problem. We need to stick in it until July, these guys need to prove that they are good enough to stay here and we will need to go get a few players.”
Ramblers have struggled to find any consistency this season and Henderson believes that his players need to question their attitude before each game.
“We were the architects of our own downfall. Our mindset is the element missing at the moment. We can see it sometimes at training. We had a good draw at home last week but let’s go out now and kick on. Drogheda were there to be beaten tonight and what it required was a discipline from us. Our front players and midfield were doing really well. We were getting it into areas where Drogheda were vulnerable. So, we needed that discipline at the back that just wasn’t there. Drogheda hit a few long balls into the box and got four goals from it. That is just wrong from our point of view.”
“I need the players to sit down and ask themselves why they can be great one week and not the next. This is a mindset and mental problem. When we go out and play well we feel like we’ve nailed it and that’s not the case. You can’t take your foot off the gas when you do well, you have to try and go better again and keep improving.”
“We have never earned the right to go out and believe we are just going to walk over a team. Anything we get we have to work hard for. We have to be organised, disciplined and get the basics right. Every game we have lost has been down to getting those things wrong. We just didn’t concentrate, and it comes back to the mindset that just because we did well against Longford means we’ll win tonight.”
“The amazing thing is we are not out of it. I keep saying we need to take it game by game and tonight shows that. We put in a really good performance against Longford and probably deserved the win and then we put in this type of performance and here we are again. It happens too often to us. As soon as we begin to feel we’ve a little bit of momentum going, we play like that and get pulled right back.”
