‘There’s a lot of competition and that’s healthy’

THE gauntlet has been thrown down to his players by Harry Kenny; stay and prove how good you really are next season. Having broken into the top six on Friday, the Bray Wanderers boss spoke of his desire to operate exclusively at that end of the table next term and he wants to do it with his current crop.

Bohemians caused some late nerves for the Seagulls with a late strike but a 2-1 success saw Wanderers leapfrog the Gypsies. It was a very enjoyable evening for Kenny despite a nervy second half.

“Very pleasing tonight. We played really well, particularly in the first half – we knocked the ball around really well and created a few chances.

“We were a little bit scrappy (after the break). They had to come out with all guns blazing because they were in a spot of bother but we defended well. Games will be like that, you’re not going to have the ball all the time and we took our chances when we had the ball in the first half.”

Friday’s victory also saw two club records broken. It was the first time that Wanderers had managed five successive top flight victories and striker Ger Pender managed a record of his own in that time and the hometown striker’s form sums up Bray’s renaissance this season.

“Five wins and another bit of history with Ger getting the five goals in the five games which is great. Five wins is a great run to have and we’re not conceding too many either.

”It’s a great turnaround. The wins breed confidence and we’ve a lot of players back from injury now. I had a big choice of players to pick from tonight.”

With all those players back, team selection has become increasingly difficult for the Shamrock Rovers hall of famer. But that is only a good thing as he asks his packed squad to finish off the season with maximum points.

“There’s a lot of competition and that’s healthy. Everyone is biting at the bit and it’s only now that we’ve had a full panel of players to pick from and it creates competition in training. It’s very healthy, we have people chasing each other for respective positions.

“You’d want to be chasing the 12 points. We’ll do a professional job between now and the end of the season and look for the 12 points. It won’t be easy, there’s Pats and Rovers in there and Harps are fighting for their lives and hopefully it’ll be a big game for the last match against Cork.”

And now Bray, so often dubbed a selling club, look to announce themselves at the top table by retaining their squad and adding a few new recruits before an assault on the 2017 table.

“I just said to the chairman that we’ll start that in the next few days and talk to people and see where we’re at. We’re doing well ourselves, I would hope that the lads will want to stay as well because it’s up and coming this club and I want to start challenging the other guys rather than being down at the wrong end of the table.

“I’d like to think that the run will have people watching where we’re at rather than fellas leaving so I’d like to think that people might say, ‘yeah, Bray are going well, I wouldn’t mind being there’.

“We’ve a couple of key players under contract and we still have to talk to another few and of course we’ll be looking elsewhere to see can we get a few in.”