MARCUS CAVAROLI
DEFEATING Shamrock Rovers in the FAI Cup two weeks ago didn’t have the desired effect on Drogheda United’s league form, but Ciaran Kelly hopes another major scalp might do the job second time around.
Another of the Premier Division’s Europa League contenders, Waterford, stand between the Boynesiders and a place in the quarter-finals and Kelly - whose goal stole a point away to Cabinteely last Friday - insists it’s a welcome distraction from his team’s push for the promotion playoffs.
‘It is good to have the game against Waterford,’ he insisted, speaking after Friday’s 2-2 draw.
‘Everyone wants to go far in that competition - it’s been a good cup over the years - and hopefully if we win that it should push us on into the bigger games. Hopefully we can make the play-offs and get promotion in the end, but a performance like tonight definitely wouldn’t be good enough.
‘We’ll have to go into the game with much more intensity and pass the ball properly. I know the pitch isn’t great here [in Cabinteely], but both teams had to deal with it.
‘It was a bad game overall. I thought we started bright, but a few mistakes crept into the game and we got punished and that’s what happens when you come down to these places.’
Despite scoring the equaliser deep into stoppage time - he also grabbed a 95th-minute equaliser against Longford early in the season - Kelly took only limited satisfaction as the Boynesiders laboured for most of the 90 minutes only a week after that famous win over Shamrock Rovers.
‘Obviously with the Rovers game everyone’s going to be up for it, but because of the position we’re in, going for the play-offs in the league, we were well up for it tonight as well,’ he insisted.
‘We got back into the game and usually you’d be delighted with getting a goal, but under the circumstances it’s just not great and we’re not happy with a draw at all.
‘The mistakes just killed us and the heads went down, I don’t know what happened. Everyone was losing the heads and making wrong decisions, and Collie Deasy seeing red in the second half didn’t help us either.
‘But we just had to push on and try and get something out of the game, which we did thankfully.
‘Tim didn’t say much. You can’t really praise that game. We had to get the three points and we only got one out of it. Obviously he was very thankful that we got the equaliser at the end and he said that to me, but we certainly needed the win.
‘Every point counts because of how tight it is, and in the last three games we absolutely have to get three points no matter what.’
Reflecting on his main contribution in the Cabinteely match, Kelly took some consolation from the fact that he’s achieved at least one personal ambition for the season.
‘I set myself a target at the start of the season to score five goals from centre-half and that was the fifth today, and it’s always a great feeling when you score, but it’s just a bit of a downer that we only got a draw,’ he summised.
‘I’ve always seen myself as technically good in front of goal. In school I was always up front in PE and stuff like that. I had every confidence in myself putting it away and I just took a touch, kept my head down and hit it and thankfully it went in the back of the net.’