SO PATIENT PEERS HAS NO FEARS FOR SAINTS
GAVIN PEERS says it’s time St Pat’s rolled their sleeves up for the fight. Five games into the Premier League season, Saints are in a hugely unfamiliar position at the bottom of the table. They have also only registered only one point out of a possible 15. It’s not the ideal way for Peers to be going into his first derby game in the capital, with Shamrock Rovers a difficult next opponent for Liam Buckley’s struggling side. Although he’s over a decade in the league, having returned from Mansfield in 2006, the veteran centre-half spent all that time in Sligo up to returning to his hometown Dublin in the close season. “I live down the road from Dalymount but the only derby I got to was Bohs-shams last year,” said Peers. “I’m expecting another great atmosphere. I always get a bit of stick anyway, so I’m expecting it.” The Inchicore club started the season looking to banish the disappointment of last season when they failed to qualify for Europe. Although it’s still very early days, with three of the 12 clubs going down automatically the spectre of relegation simply can’t be discounted - even for a club used to success. The question is, are they built for such a battle? Other clubs in the lower half are conditioned for a fight for survival but are the Saints? “The mindset has to be right,” stressed Peers (above). “It’s all right playing nice football but you have to roll the sleeves up and battle. “And that’s what we have to do now. It’s about competing first and earning the right to play. “We have to start grinding out results and, once our confidence is better, then we can start to go back to playing football.” Whatever happens, Peers insists there will be no panic at Richmond Park. “I don’t think you should panic anyway, it’s about getting the head down, focusing and winning the individual battles,” he said. “If everyone does that then things will turn. We’ve played good football and created a lot of chances, teams haven’t cut us apart. Individual errors have cost us. “It’s about cutting out the silly mistakes. At Sligo we lost the first eight games last year and finished fifth. “When we finished second a few years ago under Paul Cook I think we lost our first five or six. “So it’s about finding the right team and the right balance and picking up results. “When it turns we’ll end up battering some team. We have enough quality - it’s about winning those individual battles.” He looks back on the league title win and two FAI Cups with Sligo as a heady time in his career. But Peers doesn’t want that to be the end of the highs. “You look back on some great times but you keep moving forward and trying to keep winning,” he explained. “But we need to start winning, that’s the main thing.” Buckley will give late fitness tests to keeper Barry Murphy (inset) and to centre-half Darren Dennehy. Rovers will be without Paul Corry (knee) for a couple of weeks and there’s a doubt over another midfielder, Ryan Connolly, who has a foot problem.