‘Young lads will

SHAMROCK ROVERS schooled Bray Wanderers on Monday and Dave Mackey now hopes that his side learned their lesson.

A 6-0 drubbing at the hands of the Hoops saw the Co. Wicklow club just a goal shy of equalling their club record defeat. It was not a pretty sight from the stands and the view from the dugout can’t have been much more encouraging but the Bray boss hopes that it will shape his young squad and prepare them for the future.

“It’s a young squad. We’ve had a quick turnaround from Friday to Monday. We made one change in our starting line-up and I think Rovers made quite a few more than that (four). We knew it was going to be a difficult game because of the quick turnaround.

“We went into the game with a positive frame of mind. We had a reasonable spell towards the end of the first half.

“Their first goal was an outstanding goal and we then finished the half reasonably well but unfortunately, we had a spell in the second half (where we collapsed).

“We conceded straight after half-time and then we’d a spell where we conceded goals very quickly so the second half was very disappointing for us.

“This is going to be a good learning experience for us. We’ve games coming up now and for the

next two weeks where we’ll have games on a Friday and a Monday. We’re going to have to look and see how best we can perform and how to manage our performance levels because our performance levels tonight weren’t at the level that they were on Friday. We have to look at that and adjust it.”

It will be the first time that many of the youthful squad will have endured such a torrid evening. Mackey doesn’t envisage it leaving any scars.

“Young lads will bounce back. In football, you have to be resilient. There’ll be good days and bad days. It’s early days yet and we’re still learning as a group. It’s a big challenge for me, for the staff and for the players to show what we’re made of and to get back to the performance levels that we saw in the first two games.”

Mackey wants the chance to redeem himself on Friday when Bray are pencilled in to host Waterford but Storm Emma may yet take that chance away from him.

“We’ll get back on the training ground tomorrow. We’ve a lot of lessons to learn from it. We’re resilient and we’ll rally around and we’ll get ready for the game on Friday.

“I have to assume that the game is on on Friday. I’m aware of the weather predictions and stuff like that but we’ll still prepare on the basis that there’s a game on Friday. Fingers crossed it is played.”