Shiel says positives to be taken from Sligo

SLIGO 2-8 KILDARE 2-19

ALTHOUGH his side came away from their opening Christy Ring Cup match with a defeat, Sligo manager Stephen Shiel said afterwards that there were lots of positives to be taken from the performance, given his side were up against the Lilywhites who are in Div 2A.

The Yeats County were also down a couple of players and conditions on Saturday in Markievicz Park were anything but ideal for a free-flowing game of hurling.

Sligo did take an early lead, Gerard O’Kelly-Lynch with his first of two goals, but Kildare responded almost immediately and hit the net in the fourth and eighth minute.

Shiel spoke to the press afterwards. “I wouldn’t blame down bodies or anything like that, the 15 lads are on the field, but yeah, it was a tough game.

“Kildare are a decent side. Offaly bet them in the league final last year, they could have been playing division one, a big step up.

“It would have been a big scalp to get, but listen I’m happy with the performance, the lads are happy, we’re positive enough, but obviously it’s a bit frustrating the lack of points we had in the last ten minutes or whatever.”

Sligo to their credit kept on battling and were ruing a number of missed chances particularly in the second half which might have made the scoreboard better looking at the full-time whistle.

“It would have looked better but it wouldn’t have won the game for us, but then again we defended like mad.

“Only for the two sloppy goals they didn’t have any other goal chances but historically Sligo play better when playing better teams and it showed out there.

“Like we were playing well we were moving the ball well, a few sloppy mistakes but that’ll come like,” the manager admitted.

Sligo were behind by 10 points at the break and Shiel said he didn’t find it difficult to motivate his players for the second half.

“No, it wasn’t (difficult) actually because we knew we were playing against the wind and there was only 10 or 11 points in it or whatever it was but it’s a game of two halves and they went out at the start, and said we had to be aggressive we were aggressive, they put in serious work rate and I cant fault them for it,” he said.

The Yeats county are away to London on Saturday in McGovern Park Ruislip and also have Tyrone at home, Wicklow away, Derry at home, in their other fixtures so they are definitely in with a good chance of progressing.

Shiel said despite the loss on the first day, it still can be a good campaign for the league finalists.

“Oh yeah, 100 percent, I suppose listen, calling a spade a spade Kildare are probably going to, I won’t say they’ll win all their games but they’ll go well in it and we need to go to London now next week and get two points out of it.

He said in terms of injuries to captain Kevin O’Kennedy and Tony O’Kelly-Lynch, they are due back shortly.

“Yeah, the two lads will hopefully, I’d say Kevin might be back for next week all going well and Tony might have to take an extra week but he’ll be back soon enough then.”

He said Kildare with their league position have set the bar high and that they’re the team everyone will try to match.

“Listen, if we don’t learn from stuff like this we’re going nowhere.

“Kildare are a good side and we knew they were going to be the team to beat and if we didn’t put in a performance today it would have been more disappointing.

“But I think the lads to be fair, maybe the early goal for us might have possibly given the lads a bit of a false sense of security or whatever but they turned it around in fairness” he added.