Waterford FC captain David Mulcahy was impressed with Shelbourne’s efforts in last night’s tough battle in the SSE Airtricity League First Division. Speaking with waterfordfc.ie the Blues skipper found the going tough with two games in short succession but also paid tribute to youngster Jack Lynch who made his League debut in the 1-0 win at the RSC.
Speaking on how Shelbourne made it tough for the Blues, Mulcahy reflected:
“To be fair to Owen Heary he was Shelbourne well set up. They are a typical First Division team who work really hard for each other, press teams and give their opposition very little time to play football.
“It was always going to be hard against a very physical, direct team and they had us backs against the walls in the first half playing into the wind before Marky (O’Sullivan) came up trumps with the goal. The timing was important as it gave us a lift and got us through the half.”
With Kenny Browne already sidelined for a number of weeks, Gary Delaney out and Patrick McClean suffering a recurrence of his shoulder problem during the second half, Mulcahy found the defence stretched, especially with two games in five days, speaking on the defensive crisis, he said:
“The defence has been absolutely decimated and after the Dundalk game on Monday you could see tonight we were very leggy with some tired bodies out there. It took a lot of out of us to play two games in five days, especially with it being very hot on Monday as well against a good team.
“With the injury problems we had to play a strong side midweek and have a go up there and unfortunately with the way the game went we couldn’t utilise our Under 19 players from the bench so we were a bit leggy tonight but we got through it which was the main thing and go back top of the table.”
With injuries taking its toll on some of the more experienced heads in the squad, Mulcahy has been impressed with the emergence of Jack Lynch who signed from Limerick FC in the off-season:
“I think it was a few of weeks ago in the EA SPORTS Cup down in Wexford where he came on at half time and impressed and again he was excellent in the Cup against Cobh Ramblers at right full.
We can see him growing at training, he’s not the young lad anymore, he’s getting stuck in, he’s playing to his ability and you can see tonight that he can step in there and not be fazed by the game which is really good for the team and squad as a whole.”
Next up for the Blues is a trip to South-East rivals Wexford FC next weekend and the captain believes that sooner rather than later, the chances being created will result in a bigger scoreline:
“I hope we can put a score on a team given the chances we are creating, who knows it might happen next week against Wexford. We’ll hopefully have fresher bodies with no midweek game, get the necessary rest this week then be raring to go again on Friday night.”
