Shamrock Rvs. v. UCD AFC 10/10/2008

reports from RTE.ie suggest some Rvs. players are regaining fitness although I worry about the pressure on Joseph Ndo. 'Poor side playing their best players even though not 100% fit'. Also, he's on loan so Shamrock Rovers may be treating him a bit like a tourist with a rental car. How's his gearbox?
http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2008/...overs_ucd.html

There's one of them Niall Fitzmaurice - Pete Mahon telephone type quotes in the Evening Herald. The article begins with Pete talking about future sanctions on other clubs, he quotes the number 10. "From what I have seen, ten clubs have had financial issues of some description or other." 2You've had licensing issues and breaches of the licensing rules at a lot of clubs so far this season.On the field, "We have to win the game, there's no two ways about it." " Beating Drogheda was a big boost to the confidence, now we have to go and do it again".
There is no clue which order the quotes were first given by Pete, football first response to questions about other clubs last. Also, Pete emphasises that he's not looking for a get out.

Decent point - Ndo man of the match by a distance - Kenna and McNally best for us

Now for the tricky bit - the incident

Let's get a few irrelevant things out of the way - Fitzy was dragged back by the full back, who had just been booked. By the letter of the law etc etc etc

The ball becomes loose and 2 defenders go for it - we were behind Shorty - it looked like a very hard tackle which the rovers player got hurt badly in

Did shorty go over the top ? Don't know but the reaction of the other players would suggest that he may have - never seen him do that before so why would he ?

Did they both dive in together and it was just bad luck or was it a very bad tackle by Shorty ? The RTE match report suggests the latter

It was a full throated tackle - the only piece I cannot say is how the rovers player approached it - bad angle.

Either way, I can only hope the rovers player is not badly injured and makes a full recovery

Agree that I hope the Rovers player is OK.

But from my view of it, if the Rovers player hadn't been stretchered off, Shorty would've been. Both went in studs up and both were equally irresponsible. Curiously, the referee may have called it right in letting play go on (50/50 challenge) until he realised the Rovers player was hurt. Not nice, though. Rovers fans calling the tackle a disgrace purely on Shorty's part were well wide of the mark though.

Overall, a point I'd have been happy with in any other season. How the hell did Cobh beat Pat's 3-0 though?!

Pats are still going through the Euro hangover phase.

It's Cobh, FFS.

A poor game on a poor night. In eight games against Cobh, Finn Harps and UCD - including four at home - just one win at all and away from home sums up where Rovers are. :o

UCD looked much more limited than the earlier 1-1 draw this season and should've been looking to win, but it's still a point.

On the tackle, at the time to me in the Lego stand looked a fair attempt for what was 50/50, whether it went over the top or was late I dunno.

Poor enough game alright, but the wether was horrendous. In the conditions, I thought both teams did well to try and play a bit of ball. Matt Gregg kept us in it again though.

I didn't think it was the worst game by any means. Our play wasn't as sharp as last weak but it was still pretty neat and better than many performances this season. I won't get into the Shorty incident but I feel it took the string out of our game when we could have pressed for a winner. Earlier in the season I'd have been pleased with this point, but at the moment it feels like we're standing in quick sand. We've lost one position in the table this week and are no closer to being saved from relegation on the pitch. Anything less than a win in Cobh may well be the end of us.