Saint keeper back above Par after Rovers blunder
ST MIRREN goalkeeper Billy O’Brien was delighted to recover from his mistake against Raith Rovers last week by keeping a clean sheet in Saturday’s crunch relegation battle with Dunfermline.
The on-loan Manchester City stopper was distraught when his error allowed Ryan Hardie to score in the dispiriting 2-0 defeat last Wednesday night.
But he quickly got over it and showed his mettle by pulling off some fine saves in the draw against the Pars.
He said: “It was the best way to bounce back – a clean sheet and I made a big save in the second half.
“It’s the ups and downs of football,” he continued. “I’m not a bloke who is shy to make mistakes and go into my shell.
“It’s the worst thing about goalkeeping, if you make a mistake it’s nor- mally a big mistake that leads to goals.
“That’s the part of goalkeeping that people don’t like but to bounce back like that I’m pleased.
“Personally, for me a clean sheet is job done.”
There are those who may argue though that although St Mirren did their job at one end, their failure to register at the other may prove costly to their hopes of survival.
But for O’Brien, cutting the gap even by the one point they managed to eleventh-placed Ayr United, with the gap now standing at four points, was a step in the right direction.
“We’re going into every game thinking we need the three points, but I think we need to realise that is a point gained,” he told the club website.
“Every game is as big as each other now if we are going into games clawing points back and I person- ally think we can do it. We’ve got a good set of lads in there who are good players. There’s a real good chemistry building there.
“We’ve got Ayr, Dumbarton and Raith again so it’s in our hands. We can only do what we can do and if that’s not good enough then that’s not good enough.
“We will go into every game trying to win and we’ll see what happens at the end.”