Did nobody go to, or watch, the President's cup game on Friday?
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Enjoyable enough game; was it a friendly or competitive?
The players seemed up for it, from both sides. Plenty of competitive challges going in. Not too arsed with the result myself, most of the crowd seemed the same.
Game-wise, I thought we were pretty controlling, Rovers restricted. Second half was more even than the first. In general, we seemed more aggressive going forward, though Rovers had some lovely passing moves which we couldn't deal with.
Not sure about Rovers playing it out from the back, which they did frequently. Reminded me of us during Kenny Shiel's time; it's not the only option, you can change it up.
Not sure I'd read much into the forthcoming season from the result, but nice to get the win all the same. The game sold out, and you'd expect every game this season to be the same.
Rovers stayed overnght in Derry for the game, which would suggest they were taking it fairly seriously.
Rovers lacked that cutting edge up front. Derry were really good, aggressive and controlled in their pressing. Rovers passed the ball well and i thought were very comfortable until conceding. The howler from Leon is just one of those things and hopefully he will put it behind him. Lots of unforced errors then after the 2nd. Same in this last year we were pants against Pats and blessed to win on Peno's. Going to be a lot closer this year and with 2 away games to start that game in Tallaght is going to be crucial for both teams.
Rovers took the game seriously only up to a point as starting 11 included only 3/4 who will start against Sligo ( not sure was it the same for Derry selection?) we did bring on the likes of Byrne and Burke which made little difference so hard to glean too much from Friday except that it was good work out for both sides
If Rovers have a match they want to win, Finn Byrne and Burke are the first 3 names on the sheet as well as Pico and Manus (Finn rarely misses the big games although doesnt play them all obv). The fact that Pico was the only starter tells me it was a "like to win" rather than "really care".
Id say the same for Derry though
I have no idea why Pohls is at the club tbh. we'd have been better getting Brendan Clarke in as back up for Manus. A reasonably competant back up keeper is a must
UU 0-10 UCD and UCD 4-0 UCC in the Collingwood Cup in UU this week. Final v UL is later today. Don't remember such big results in the Collingwood before, even when we had ridiculously strong teams (like Gary O'Neill, Niall Corbet, Greg Sloggett, Josh Collins, Jason McClelland and Liam Scales all in the same team, with Georgie Kelly on the bench)
They'll probably be ok for Friday, but I know in 2017 the final clashed with our opening league game (against Cabo), so we had the reserves playing in the LoI (and they won)
The three games this week are probably seen as good training ahead of Friday tbh. Healy, Gallagher, Keaney, Keane, Higgins, Kinsella-Bishop and maybe Ciarán Behan would all be in the first-team squad and they all started this week for example. Plus Danny Norris who was on the bench (but scored in the 10-0).
If Stojkovic can manage it...!
(But yeah - I meant he started on the bench of course)
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