‘We have to take this on the chin and look forward’

IT dominates small talk throughout the country, and it dominated Gary Cronin’s post-match thoughts in Stradbrook on Friday; the weather.

The 40-year-old was drenched to the skin and shuddering occasionally as he credited Cabinteely for taking their chances on a night he admits was no friend of footballers.

‘It’s a tough one to take, result wise. It was a horrible night. We were hoping to have the wind ourselves in the first half and it goes to show (the difference it can make) being 4-0 down at half time. That made it really difficult for us. It was a game of two halves probably because we had probably had chances to score four as well. For both sets of players, it was an absolutely horrible night and it could have went either way in relation to that but we were obviously particularly disappointed with three of the four goals.’

Wanderers did halve the deficit by the end of the second period and the spirit shown in the second period was a slight glimmer of optimism on a miserable evening but Cronin certainly won’t let an opening day defeat in such horrendous conditions bog him down.

‘We came out (and did better). It’s obviously not very often that you’re 4-0 down at half time so you have to come out with a bit of desire and we did that in the very first few seconds when we got a cross in which lead to a good chance. It would have been nice to get a second goal in earlier than we did because we might have made something of it in the end, but it wasn’t to be.

‘We walked on the pitch beforehand and the rain came, and it was a horrible, horrible night for football for both sets of players; not just ourselves.

‘I don’t think any set of players can really show what they can do from a footballing point of view (in that) and obviously Cabinteely put the ball in the net two more times than us.’

Thankfully Bray have the chance to restore optimism on Friday as they host Wexford FC.

‘That’s what we need to do. When you look at last year, we won here 3-0 and Cabinteely finished ahead of us in the league so there’s games; there’s 26 games or so ahead of us. “Last year, we started on fire and won three out of three and didn’t get what we wanted.

‘We didn’t want to lose tonight; not at all. Of course, we wanted to win but we have to take this one on the chin and look forward to our home game next week and try get a win there.’