Rovers must be competing in the top three in 2017

AS end of season games go this was a difficult one for many reasons. Wexford Youths were fulfilling a fixture and that’s all they did. They obviously had both eyes on this week’s playoff against Drogheda and with Shane Keegan in United Park it was going to make our final fixture difficult viewing.

The team Youths put out was very inexperienced at this level and it showed early in the game.

They are a club that may have got promoted too quickly and that may sound like a flippant, even patronising comment but in truth they are a very average side.

I believe Drogheda will beat them over the two legs and if it did happen it would be a journey no one would miss. The game for us was always a no win situation with them so poor it was always going to be hard to play at a high level.

That said we had some nice passages of play and the first goal had class written all over it from Roberts cross to Sadliers finish.

These type of games when it’s so easy some players will naturally drop a few levels and it can affect the over all quality of the game.

We ended up with five goals on the night and we could have had more and it was a good way to finish what has been a positive season. The highlight of the match was the introduction of Mikey Place and Mark Hannon who made his debut.

Mikey took his goal well and was unlucky with a chance prior to scoring.

For me personally it was refreshing to see a local make his debut and the Hannon and Phillips families will have been ecstatic with Mark getting a run.

We have a massive following in Jinks Avenue and I’m sure they were very proud to have a neighbour’s child make his first team bow. I was disappointed the other young lads didn’t get a run as the contest was over before it started.

These young lads will be delighted to have got a taste of first team action but instead of resting on their laurels and thinking they have made it , they need to focus and work even harder than ever before. I saw young lads over the years get the tracksuit and a few games and they thought they were on the pigs back. They have a great opportunity now and they must grab it and I hope they all do.

As I said last week if we were offered fifth place before the season we would have taken it happily.

It’s been a positive season from where we were last season but the players and management must have us competing in the top three with European football being our main target next year.

Dave has a lot of his business done already and he obviously has a few choices to make about our current squad. I hope Ciaran Nugent is signed as he has been magnificent since he came in.

We definitely will be losing one member of this year’s squad as I spotted one of our players with John Caufield as I left the Sligo Park last Saturday.

Akinade has been linked as has have a few others but we will need to be signing a centre half, creative midfielder and a striker.

If we got those three with the nucleus of what we have we would have a decent squad. The season flew by and now we are into the madness of nearly five months off.

The FAI should shorten the off season especially after what Dundalk went through this season.

Well, this will be my final column I have thoroughly enjoyed it over the last few years and have a greater appreciation of deadlines and journalism as a whole.

I tried to be as honest as possible and say it as I saw it and I hope I conveyed that to you.

Football is all about opinions and I know people will have agreed and disagreed with me but that’s what the game is all about. It was always nice to get comments be it positive or negative and I never took it too seriously either way. We have had some amazing days in recent times and hopefully these days will return again. Up the Rovers, Slán.