Kelly wants victory to be a stepping stone

AS pleased as he was by Friday’s victory over Derry City, caretaker manager Graham Kelly knows that it is only the first rung on the ladder.

With two home clashes with Bohemians and Waterford to come in the next five days, Bray Wanderers must take Friday’s success and use it to fuel a points-laden run.

Victories over the Gypsies and the Blues could take Wanderers to 13 points - the same tally that ninth placed Limerick are currently on - and Kelly maintains that the squad have always thought nights like Friday were possible.

“It was a really good performance from the lads on Friday and right from then first whistle I feel we dominated that game and thoroughly deserved the three points.

“I don’t think there was any bad performances - even the lads that came on put a real shift in and that’s what you need when you’re down at the end of the table. We also need to keep the ball which I thought we did really well.

“The belief was always there. There’s plenty of belief in this squad. We feel that we have players that are good enough (to keep us up), we haven’t really got much luck over the last couple of weeks and maybe we got that luck on Friday but two fantastic goals from Ronan Coughlan.”

With Martin Russell still not appointed as manager, Kelly looks set to take charge against Bohs and Waterford and he is under no illusions as to how significant those matches could be.

“We look ahead to the first game which is Bohs and we have to prepare for them during the week and that’s what we’ll do. We have to go into with the positivity coming out of that (Derry) game and bring that into next Friday night and then we’ll look at Waterford after that.

“We need to start picking up points no matter who we play and that started on Friday with Derry. The lads have put them performances in in recent weeks and we haven’t got anything out of it so it was just great to get the three points on Friday.”