MARCUS CAVAROLI
AFTER enjoying a rare start in the game against Longford Town, Gareth McCaffrey has reiterated his commitment to Drogheda and says he has no intentions of seeking a move away from United Park.
The 22-year-old forward has been kicking his heels on the bench for long spells this season, a situation that might spark interest from elsewhere during the upcoming transfer window, but after Friday’s 1-0 defeat he was unequivocal about his short-term future.
‘God, no. It’s not on my mind at all,’ was his immediate reaction when asked if he might consider a move to secure more regular football.
‘I’m fully committed to this football club and I think I’ve showed that from going away previously and coming back,’ he continued.
‘I like everybody around the club, the chairman and I know Tim a very long time.
‘So there’s no indication and I’ve certainly not put a single thought into that. I don’t want to be going anywhere. I want to be here next year, in the Premier Division. That’s the way I’m looking at it, that’s the goal and we’re all going to do everything we can to make sure that happens.’
Pressed on his thoughts about being named among the subs on 12 occasions - he has made just seven starts from 19 competitive games this season - McCaffrey responded: ‘Personally, you want to play as many games as you can, but when the lads are doing so well it’s very difficult to argue.
‘I am enjoying it [with Drogheda], obviously not as much as if I’m starting every game because we’re all footballers and we all want to play as much as you can.
‘Being honest with myself, I probably could have got fitter, but I’m starting to feel fitter now, so I’ll look after myself during the break and all I can do is keep working hard and trust the manager and the lads to go out and get wins, because they’re coming.
‘We’re going to have a big push into the business end of the season.’
Looking back at the narrow defeat at the hands of Longford, McCaffrey was left scratching his head at how Drogheda didn’t get something out of the game.
‘I thought I did okay up and down the wing in a game I thought we controlled for the majority of it and it’s a tough defeat to take,’ he said.
‘I don’t think we did an awful lot wrong, to be honest. I thought we played it out from the back when we had to. The balls into the channels were decent and I thought we pressed them well.
‘Look, you can’t really get in trouble by blaming referees, but when certain decisions don’t go your way and one match official is saying one thing and another one is saying another it’s quite difficult to get your head around.’
McCaffrey himself was booked for a challenge he didn’t think was worthy of a free kick, but that’s all in the past now and he - like most of the players - is now enjoying a short break before the Boynesiders welcome Cobh Ramblers to United Park on Friday week.
‘It’s not an ideal way to go into the break [two straight defeats], but I think a lot of people would have written us off even from the start of the season,’ he continued.
‘We’ve finished the second round of games going into the break and we’re second, and in the last round we have an awful lot of home games coming up. So we’re very confident. We’re in no way questioning our ability because we know how good we are as a group. We’re a tight group and we all work very hard for each other.
‘We’ll take a week’s rest - we probably deserve it after a lot of games in the last couple of weeks - and we’ll be gunning for Cobh at home when we come back.’