Games weekend 28th April to 1st of May

[Longfordian]

Fully agree. Always prepared to cut a young team giving everything a bit of slack. And they're improving too. Keeping the show on the road and being in the mix for the play offs is as much as we can expect.

[sbgawa]

great weekend for Rovers and Dundalk.
If Rovers can beat Bohs on Friday and close up to 1 point from the top a huge recovery from a disasterous 6 game with no wins start will be complete.
Sligo can make their way into the mix i reckon in what still seems a prety poor league .

[oriel]

Sure was SB, couldn't believe we climbed to 4th. Rovers look in good shape now for another title.

[placid casual]

Meant to add, I sincerely hope Cm Whelan is OK-
like a load of people, I'd say, my heart sank a little when I saw him hit the deck and he appeared to be in distress.
Did he run it off or they just kept him on regardless as it was hard to tell on the tele?

[nigel-harps1954]

Grim enough result and another injury for Harps and more inept refereeing.

Turning out to be a terrifically fun season in the First Division.

[ToberonaTornado]

dundalk??? id be shocked if they are anywhere near europe come the end of the season. they are a poor side.

We've about 100 players out atm and yet we're still doing heads in :D
We'll keep battling on though ;)

[SwanVsDalton]

Rovers remain streets ahead. It's bad enough simply not playing well, even worse when we insist on shooting our own feet off...

Derry desperately miss Connolly, Dummigan and Fats, not to mention a fit Whelan playing every week. For all the money spent, our squad is wile thin in key areas. But none of that is any excuse for how flat we've been for long stretches this season.

[joey B]

Just watching the Derry/Rovers highlights and what a goal for Rovers opener…..
What was Maher at for the second though,terrible timing to concede then and it seemed like a really ill advised rush of blood to the head….

[SwanVsDalton]

Just watching the Derry/Rovers highlights and what a goal for Rovers opener…..
What was Maher at for the second though,terrible timing to concede then and it seemed like a really ill advised rush of blood to the head….

A player who needs to learn rapidly that just because you can doesn't mean you should. Being a ball-playing sweeper keeper might be your USP but that also means learning to Row Z it in first-half injury time.

[trevy]

Flat performance from Waterford at the RSC after 6 wins in a row. Wexford scored early on with Dobbs heading in a cross. Waterford had a lot of the ball but didn't create much against a solid Wexford team who worked hard. Coughlan had an off day by his standards missing 2 good chances. Home fans were quiet too and crowd was down a bit on our usual Friday nights so a flat day all around.

[JC_GUFC]

With Waterford having been beaten by Wexford earlier in the day there was a chance for us to be 13 points clear by Friday night with two wins.

As it was Jack Brady made a great save from David Hurley after about 90 seconds and Longford went up the other end and scored. With a lot of hard work from their players and some pieces of luck thrown in as well as a few more saves from Jack Brady, Longford held on for the 3 points.

Maybe it's the kick up the hole our lads need ahead of Waterford. If we do win we'll be 10 clear of them, which would be very hard for them to overhaul.

Between Athlone in 3rd and Longford in 9th there really is nothing between the teams - Pierrot from Athlone does look a handful - he was incredibly strong at holding the ball up against us and you'd imagine if he comes up against a young defender he'll get a lot of joy, which I guess was the case in Finn Park.

Just as an aside on Adriano Reale's non-advantage for Cork. He was the referee who earlier in the season did the same when Derry were in on goal against Sligo (I think) live on TV. Referees make mistakes but it's bad for the same referee to make exactly the same mistake he made a few months ago.

[Louth4sam]

Rovers remain streets ahead. It's bad enough simply not playing well, even worse when we insist on shooting our own feet off...

Derry desperately miss Connolly, Dummigan and Fats, not to mention a fit Whelan playing every week.

Probably along with Patching, the only player you signed from us that I didn't mind losing. He has terrible luck with injuries and then it takes him a few games to get back up to speed when recovered. He gets back to being the best player in the league and then gets injured again and the cycle continues.

[ontheotherhand]

Derry badly missing Connolly and Dummigan. Jack just ran the midfield with ease. He's really looking close to his very best. Our first goal was one of the weirdest and best I've seen. If you can't play on the pitch, play over it. Such a lovely goal to watch.

Second half was a non-event really. Pico and co completely shut down anything Derry tried. Duffy started the game brightly enough but seemed very deflated for most of it.

Very sorry to see Whelan go down. He looked like he was in some amount of pain but somehow played the game on? Hope he's alright.

[Calcio Jack]

Derry badly missing Connolly and Dummigan. Jack just ran the midfield with ease. He's really looking close to his very best. Our first goal was one of the weirdest and best I've seen. If you can't play on the pitch, play over it. Such a lovely goal to watch.

Second half was a non-event really. Pico and co completely shut down anything Derry tried. Duffy started the game brightly enough but seemed very deflated for most of it.

Very sorry to see Whelan go down. He looked like he was in some amount of pain but somehow played the game on? Hope he's alright.

With an ACL you can still in certain circumstances continue torun .. I was amazed that Derry left him to play on unless they were convinced it wasn’t anything serious…. Hopefully that’s the case

[sbgawa]

I was on here on Friday saying we were poor against Sligo but the stats for the game against Derry back up how good we were 3 days later
68% possesion away from home against any team is good , in Derry against a good Derry team its fantastic.

On Clancy going id say it was a case of jump or wait to be pushed and he was ****ed off with the pressure.
He could end up back at Drogs if Doherty's performance earns him a move if a vacancy comes up somewhere in the league.....Cork maybe?
Doherty is on the record as saying he wants to go fulltime but always caveats it by saying "hopefully with Drogheda".

Genuinely hope Whelan is ok , appreciate Derry are rivals and all that but hes only a kid and seeing him in tears last night makes me think he knew it was the ACL again. Amazed Derry didnt haul him off.

Hope Manus is ok for Friday agaisnt Bohs , Pohls isnt bad , saved the peno last night which killed the game for us but he is no Alan Manus

[oriel]

23 yellow cards and 2 reds and 1 of the 5 games still left to play....if refs were paid on card commission they would sail through a cost of living crisis!

and just like that Dundalk are no longer looking over the shoulder at a playoff spot and in to 4th. Starting to think Sligo may be edging toward favourites tag for a European spot.

I don't see either Derry or Bohs slipping out of the top 3, so whoever gets last euro spot will prob either need to win the cup or finish 4th (prob 80% chance one of top 3 will be in the final) so that usually gets last spot.

The classic 'best of the rest' and Sligo do look in a good position, esp when you have a main striker like Max scoring regularly, then again as we saw last few weeks, Pats were flying and climbed to 2nd, then lost 3 in a row and now 7th, look at ourselves up to 4th after a terrible run of form (also lost 3 in a row) but we could easily drop to lower mid table after this weekend.

4th spot is wide open in my view, put a good run of results in and any team obv gains that advantage.

[The Bowler]

With an ACL you can still in certain circumstances continue torun .. I was amazed that Derry left him to play on unless they were convinced it wasn’t anything serious…. Hopefully that’s the case
Jaysus I didn't realise until reading here that Whelan was in trouble again. When he did his ACL at Finn Park, the UCD physio told him to run it off and sent him back on, he went off subsequently. I'm sure he will have learned from that calamitous physio advice to be careful when told to run it off. Really hope he is OK, christ that's stomach churning if he's done it again.

[Dermobohs]

Yes, hope he’s ok. Grace was it, standing over the lad shouting in his ear, presumably accusing him of diving. Bit insensitive to say the least.

[oriel]

Meant to post last night, the co-coms on LOITV for UCD are hilarious. Last night they covered Spice Bags and IPA beers while the game was on, and then updated that those 'up in Dundalk' might prefer Harp or Macardles.

Outstanding stuff, and all in wonderful D4 accents, almost like the soft tone you would hear at Golf or Tennis.

[joey B]

Meant to post last night, the co-coms on LOITV for UCD are hilarious. Last night they covered Spice Bags and IPA beers while the game was on, and then updated that those 'up in Dundalk' might prefer Harp or Macardles.

Outstanding stuff, and all in wonderful D4 accents, almost like the soft tone you would hear at Golf or Tennis.

These lads seem to be complete marmite,I think they're great but loads of others cant stand them..........

[vinnie]

These lads seem to be complete marmite,I think they're great but loads of others cant stand them..........

I love them too, you never know whats coming next, you learn something new, being a university, or you **** yer pants laughing, but always entertaining

[Shinkicker]

I love them too, you never know whats coming next, you learn something new, being a university, or you **** yer pants laughing, but always entertaining
I put in on for a few minutes and wondered how they managed to get Ross O Carroll Kelly on the commentary team.

[Stuttgart88]

Meant to add, I sincerely hope Cm Whelan is OK-
like a load of people, I'd say, my heart sank a little when I saw him hit the deck and he appeared to be in distress.
Did he run it off or they just kept him on regardless as it was hard to tell on the tele?Any update on this?

[joey B]

Any update on this?

Rumours on FB he's injured his ACL again in the same leg,only a rumour but awful for the lad if it's happened again......

[ontheotherhand]

Rumours on FB he's injured his ACL again in the same leg,only a rumour but awful for the lad if it's happened again......

Awful for the lad and horrific from the Derry mgmt if they asked him to play on or didn't intervene and pull him off. The lad was in tears and should have been taken off immediately.

[Dermobohs]

Ah that’s rotten luck, I watched young margerusan at bohs the same, great talent but three or four really bad injuries one after the other.
Best of luck to him hoe he gets back fit.

[dcfc_legend9]

Awful for the lad and horrific from the Derry mgmt if they asked him to play on or didn't intervene and pull him off. The lad was in tears and should have been taken off immediately.

I felt at the time given all his troubles over the last year with his previous ACL injury that the management made a horrific call in asking him to stay on knowing he was in distress. Regardless if we had of gone to 10 men or not the game was dead and buried. He should have been told to come off to allow them to get ice or whatever was required on it straight away to reduce swelling etc.

Only rumours of an ACL floating about at the current moment. Fingers crossed however that its not as serious as we think and its just a tweak of a knee that will take time to build strength on.

[ontheotherhand]

I felt at the time given all his troubles over the last year with his previous ACL injury that the management made a horrific call in asking him to stay on knowing he was in distress. Regardless if we had of gone to 10 men or not the game was dead and buried. He should have been told to come off to allow them to get ice or whatever was required on it straight away to reduce swelling etc.

Only rumours of an ACL floating about at the current moment. Fingers crossed however that its not as serious as we think and its just a tweak of a knee that will take time to build strength on.

Hope you're right. The league needs talent like his coming through.