Might as well just Copy and paste from the general Matchday thread:
Very disappointing night.
I think Limerick's inexperience at this level, compared with Pats anyway, got shown up big time tonight. Our backline was caught in possession so many times, our midfield struggled to make an impact, and the forwards were isolated and frustrated. Our gameplan was very obvious for most of the 90: Get the ball down the right, and it didn't work.
Good view of the penalty decision from where I was, and I think it was a dive. Hit the ground just as the defender was behind him. Maybe MNS will sort it out, but I'm fairly sure there was simulation.
Buttimer, Christ, he's easy to hate. Every time a Limerick player had a long ball aimed at him he was getting pulled around. Plenty of hand balls missed. Looked like the Pats keeper handled outside the area. Lack of advantage for Limerick at times. Curran booked when it seemed he'd missed the player he "tackled". Four times in the second half a Pats player went down "Injured" and ate up time. Enraging to watch (Here's a thought, apropos of that: if a player goes down "injured" and has to go off the field, how about he has to stay off for a full five minutes, just to get a really thorough check from the physios? We'll see how many lads are really hurt then).
Pats passed it a lot better than us, but probably overused the Forrester option, by the second half he wasn't getting anywhere. They weren't great in the last third, but far better than us up the other end. Gamble had a very poor 90, lots of errors, very slow looking. He held up the ball the most out of anyway, as we screamed for any bit of urgency from the terraces. I lost count of the number of times Curren received the ball to his chest and then was surrounded and had no one to play it to. Limerick just seemed so, so hesitant to play in any offensive way, constantly waiting, considering, passing it back and back and back.
Poor Galbriath on the left had a miserable night. He had so much space at times but only twice in the second half was an attempt made to "switch" the play to him quickly, and both times the ball was straight to a Pats player. He was threatening when going forward, so we should use that avenue more.
But can't complain about the ref or how Pats seemed fairly impotent, because we had two sitters in either half. Curran and Bradley, clean through, needing just to sidefoot it home from 8 yards, and they fluffed their lines. Unforgivable to be frank. Easy, easy chances. Bradley especially just walked it to the keeper. Also, I think we must have been a bit light, because it took ages for changes to be made and they were hardly offensive in nature when they happened. I think we lacked something out there tonight, the kind of thing that Rory Gaffney gave us last year in the FD. We had a fair few injuries/suspensions I suppose, but we should be able to deal with that kind of thing.
I think this game is a bit of a wake-up call for the team, we've been playing well against some of the lesser sides of the division, fought well in Sligo, but we we got a lesson tonight from a more confident, experienced outfit. Shams to come on Tuesday, so could well be three defeats in a row. I don't have any fears of relegation for Limerick, but it is clear that we are nowhere near at the level of the best teams yet.
Decent crowd I suppose, given the cold. Looked like a bit of trouble in the away section for a time, a lot of guards suddenly turned up there in the second half, hope everything was ok.
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