Cobh Ramblers manager Stephen Henderson couldn’t hide his frustration after watching his side slump to a 1-0 home defeat to Athlone Town on Saturday evening at St. Colman’s Park. In an entertaining encounter, both sides pushed for an opener but lack
Cobh Ramblers manager Stephen Henderson couldn’t hide his frustration after watching his side slump to a 1-0 home defeat to Athlone Town on Saturday evening at St. Colman’s Park. In an entertaining encounter, both sides pushed for an opener but lacked that quality final ball to make the breakthrough. That was until the 43rd minute when a terrific Kealan Dillon cross was glanced home by Dean Williams to give the visitors the lead. Ramblers dominated the second half and missed three glorious chances in the final ten minutes to secure a draw. Athlone held out to secure their first away league win in two years (March 3rd, 2017 vs Wexford). A disappointed Henderson was left to rue Ramblers lack of killer instinct in front of goal. “We had no heroes here tonight. I’m immensely frustrated after that. I thought we started the game really well, put them under a lot of pressure. We were looking for someone to get their head onto the ball because some of those crosses were phenomenal. Matthew Lamb was playing some terrific balls into the box and they were crying out for some to aggressively attack them. “If you look at their goal, it came from one decent cross into the box and Williams gets ahead of the defender and puts it into the top corner. Credit to him, it was a great goal. We had about eight or nine opportunities to do the same thing tonight and we didn’t take them.” “There are some positives. We did play well. You look at last week and we got battered by Drogheda. We wanted to see how we’d react to that and I thought we did alright. The pitch wasn’t great but we created three of four one-on-ones and they nearly scored three or four own goals because of the quality of the crosses into the box.” Ramblers now turn their focus to the EA Sports Cup and a match against Limerick next Tuesday night. It is a competition the Cork side have fond memories of after reaching the final last year. “It’s a good thing to be straight back into it on Tuesday night against Limerick as it gives us a chance to rectify tonight. The EA Sports Cup is a great opportunity for players to take a few more risks so we’ll have to be a bit braver on Tuesday and have a real go," said Henderson. “We want to kick on and do well in this cup, so we’ll see what injuries we have but we are taking the match serious. At this stage after two defeats, we need to settle on our shape, but one or two lads will get their chance. “I’m gutted about our start to the league, so the EA Sports Cup is a pleasant distraction. I want to get back to the league then though because I do believe when we get ourselves up and running, get a little bit of confidence we will go on a good run. We’ve seen already that everybody is capable of beating anybody in this league.”
