Lyttle praises ‘tremendous’ effort of players, but warns they must not get carried away
SLIGO Rovers manager Ger Lyttle praised the efforts of his players after they beat Limerick 2-1 at the Market’s Field on Saturday night.
Rhys McCabe’s stunning freekick gave Rovers the lead before Greg Moorhouse doubled their tally.
The hosts pulled one back late on, but Rovers held out to take all three points.
“I’m delighted. It was a difficult week last week with the result (against Derry). It’s in the past now, the boys know only us can fix it. I thought we had a really good positive week this week,” Lyttle told The Sligo Champion.
“The boys were superb, they responded really well, they worked very hard. Coming here is a difficult place to come and get a result. Not many teams come here and have an easy game so to go 2-0 up we’re in dreamland a wee bit. Of course we did then what we do best and leave everyone panicking and on edge and the boys seen it out. They were tremendous, just delighted to get the three points.”
Limerick were furious that McCabe’s ball was allowed to stand as it appeared it was still rolling as he took the free-kick, but for Rovers - they all count.
“I didn’t see a thing!” Lyttle quipped. “I thought it was smart on his behalf,I thought, and I’m not just saying it cause we won, but I thought the referee was decent tonight, he let the game run a wee bit. It suited us. We said before the game about playing with a good tempo and good intensity and get the ball down and keep probing. I thought tonight all the boys were excellent. There was great determination and I was very positive coming into this game. We’ll not get carried away. It’s one game. It’s a good response, hopefully we can try and build on that.”
Greg Moorhouse scored his first competitive goal for the club on Saturday night, meaning that he can now shave his facial hair!
“We had a wee bit of fun with Greg beforehand. He has a wee bit of stubble, he says he wasn’t going to shave it until he scored a goal and I said ‘you’re going to be running about like Moses’ because he hasn’t scored but we’re delighted for him to score because he has been very frustrated since he’s come here in terms of a lack of goals but I think everyone deserves a huge amount of credit.
“Rightly so, we got a huge amount of stick. It’s important that the fans try and stick with us and stay positive. I know sometimes it can be like that but it’s up to us to put in an honest performance and hopefully the Derry game was a bit of a wake-up call.”
Lyttle opted for experienced players such as Raff Cretaro and Eduardo Pinceli on Saturday night as he feels they bring a calmness to pressurised situations.
“I think we needed it (experience). When you’re not getting results and fans are on your back, young players don’t really respond too well to it. I thought with Raff and Eduardo tonight it would calm things down for us and obviously wise heads, and we put some youth in there with Jack Keaney in the middle of the park, he was excellent. Him and Dave Cawley formed a nice partnership.
“There’s a lot of positives tonight but there’s still things we need to work at and we’ll rectify some things. It was all about the three points.”
Regan Donelon played his first game since pre-season, with Calum Waters missing out in his place.
Lyttle praised the commitment of the 22-year-old.
“Regan’s been out with a hamstring injury and again it was a big call for us, for such an important game but Regan never lets anyone down, he always puts in an honest performance and tonight he put in an honest performance. We just said ‘look, work your hardest and we’ll see what we can get out of you’ and he did that and he put his hand up and said ‘that’s me, I’m done’ which you have huge respect for. Calum Waters is probably hard done by being left out but I just thought that tonight was a game that Regan could get some minutes in.”
Lyttle hopped over the advertising hoardings at full-time to celebrate with fans. But he hit out at one supporter who he says was not very complimentary towards the players in the warm-up.
“Yeah there was a wee incident before the game with one supporter, who was giving us a bit of stick in the warm-up which I’ve never seen before.
“He was actually hammering us and it wasn’t a great confidence booster for us. We were warming up and shooting and he was giving us stuck about our finishing and doing this and doing that.
“To be honest I was very annoyed at it. He pays his money, he’s entitled to it but I just think if you’re going to support us, especially before the game, support us, don’t be giving us stick. We’re a team lacking a bit of confidence and we didn’t need that. I just jumped over at the end and wanted to try and shake everyone’s hand and thank them for coming and supporting us and asked them to stay with us and be positive. It’s going to be up and down. We know that. Just get behind us and fight for us and give us that confidence we need.”
Rovers travel to Cork today (Tuesday) to take on the champions. It certainly won’t be easy, but anything is possible in this league.
“Ah it’s an easy one!” he joked. “This league is a tough league, you look at Friday night’s result, I think the biggest win was 2-0. That’s the type of league we’re in. Every team is capable of it.
“You just go out and work hard and play for the jersey and play for the badge and anything can happen. We’ll do the same on Tuesday.”