Buckley wants to see an improvement ‘on the ball’
DUNDALK SLIGO ROVERS 1 1
SLIGO Rovers manager Liam Buckley will not be getting carried away by his side’s 1-1 draw with the champions Dundalk at Oriel Park on the opening night of the 2019 SSE Airtricity Premier Division season.
Rovers had to endure immense pressure from the Lilywhites all night but were impressive in doing so, and came home with a vital point.
The former St. Patrick’s Athletic manager, however, wants his side to improve their passing game. HE said: “I’m delighted with the outcome, it’s an important point. With the ball we were bang average, without it I thought we were great in fairness. The lads put in a serious shift, they worked extremely hard. We just discussed inside, we need to be better on the ball to have a chance of winning games instead of holding on for a draw.
“Dundalk are the benchmark for our league, and they’ll win the league this year. They’ve passed better than us. It’s not difficult if you know what you’re doing, at the minute we’re still working on what we’re doing. We will get it better. They would have trained far better than what you’re seeing tonight.”
Buckley is hopeful that both David Cawley and Ronan Murray will be available for this weekend, while he is also hoping to make a couple of signings before the deadline this week.
With a very youthful squad, Buckley was pleased with his side’s work-rate throughout the game.
“We’ve got quite a few that have come through the underage group. It’s a bit of a character building exercise from that end. I thought they were great at it tonight. They’ve all worked extremely hard to a man, albeit Dundalk had all the chances.
“Having said that I will get this better with them on the ball because I know what I see in training, just have to get a bit of confidence in what we do.”
Buckley, like most Rovers fans, would have feared the worst when his side conceded a penalty with just six minutes played.
“I’ve been up here on the wrong end of a couple of scores. It was a poor mistake on our part from a defensive point of view but in fairness it was a great save that kept us in the match. We’ve hung in there. Great free-kick from Jack Keaney. At half-time I was saying to them ‘you just need to hold on to the ball better’ but we didn’t and in fairness to Dundalk they had all the chances. Sligo came up here last year, I remember watching it and they lost 5-0. So to pick up a point against the champions here, I don’t see too many teams drawing or winning here.”
Buckley praised the performance of Ed McGinty, with the youngster picking up ‘man of the match’.
“I had a choice between Luke McNicholas, Ed and Mitch Beeney. There’s very little between them. I won’t say the toss of a coin but Ed done great tonight. I’m delighted for him. His work-rate is tremendous in training and a quality keeper. I’ve no doubt he’ll be one of the better ones in the league.”
Still, though, Buckley wants to see more from his side and knows that improvements will have to be made in order to start winning games.
“Without the ball they’ve all put in a shift, with the ball, no it didn’t happen for us this evening. To go and win games you have to actually go and play well, you have to play with the ball better to get your chances and we didn’t create enough.
“Don’t get me wrong, we have Pats and Cork next weekend and it’s a very difficult opening. The three teams there will be looking a European spots. We’ll look at it during the week and try and see where we can get better. See what we can do to get our passing game better. We’ve seen none of it there this evening.”