Shelbourne manager Ian Morris was happy with a good evening's work after watching his side carve out a 2-1 win over a spirited Wexford FC outfit in their SSE Airtricity League First Division meeting at Ferrycarrig Park on Friday. A goal in each half
Shelbourne manager Ian Morris was happy with a good evening's work after watching his side carve out a 2-1 win over a spirited Wexford FC outfit in their SSE Airtricity League First Division meeting at Ferrycarrig Park on Friday. A goal in each half from Aidan Friel and Dayle Rooney put the visitors in control, and although Jack Doherty pulled one back late on for Wexford it never looked like Shels would be denied. Morris says his side travelled down the N11 expecting a tough battle and he was delighted with the application of his players as they eked out an important victory. “Wexford are a tough team to beat. The way they have played and performed in previous games has been different to what their results have shown. They've got some good players at the top end of the pitch and they defend quite well so we had to work really hard. “We had to make sure our shape and our discipline was good tonight and once we started moving the ball I thought we caused them a lot of problems and thankfully we've come away with the three points,' he said. The timing of the Shelbourne goals was all-important, with Friel's opener coming in the 17th minute to settle any nerves and the Rooney adding a second with 82 minutes on the clock when Wexford still harboured hopes of taking something from the game, although Morris believes his side could have killed off the game earlier. “They were big goals and we were well worth them as well. We had a couple of other chances in the first few minutes. We hit the bar and some of the lads scuffed shots in the six-yard box, which we should really be sticking away but we got the result in the end and we'll go home happy,” he said. The only blot on an otherwise pristine copybook was allowing Jack Doherty to ghost in to score his sixth goal of a fruitful campaign in the 89th minute to give the hosts a glimmer of late hope and Morris couldn't hide his frustration at failing to keep their clean sheet intact. “I'm very disappointed. Clean sheets are big for us and we want to keep them all the time. To concede that late from a free header in the middle of the box is really disappointing and that's probably the black mark on the game tonight for us,” he said. The win lifts the Reds to within a point of leaders Cabinteely, who host Drogheda United tonight (Saturday) and Morris says every team vying for promotion to the top flight are going to experience their ups and downs. “Everyone seems to hit a purple patch and it only takes two or three wins on the bounce and you're up the table and if you don't pick up points you're playing catch-up. There's going to be a lot of leapfrogging between now and the end of the season. "You can see the quality that every squad has, but all we can do is keep picking up as many points as we can as see where we end up,” he said.
