DESPITE Friday’s 3-1 defeat to Waterford at St Colman’s Park, Cobh Ramblers manager Shane Keegan is looking on the bright side as his team regroups ahead of a trip to Athlone Town.

The Rams went into the game three unbeaten and they conceded twice in the opening ten minutes. After Jack Doherty scored a penalty, Shane Griffin poked the ball in at the Liam McMahon Stand and that made sure Keith Long’s side got the three points.

Regardless of this, Keegan is happy with how his side responded to an early two-goal deficit.

“Their attitude is faultless, their attitude is absolutely faultless I have to say. Really, really excellent. It was the same up in Harps a couple of weeks ago,” he said.

“Really, really brilliant response. They are a great group. They manage themselves, to be honest with you. There’s a couple of leaders in that dressing room. Two of them unfortunately were subs tonight rather than starters, in Frahlly (Brendan Frahill) and Abbo (Jason Abbott) but they are absolutely two of our most prominent players.

“Yet they were still involved in everything tonight. You could see them on the pitch during the warm-up, you could see them in the dressing room constantly, they carried Cian (Browne) off the pitch after the injury. Character-wise, I cannot fault this squad in any shape or form.” 

Underneath the optimism is a feeling of raw disappointment after a number of chances were denied by the tiniest of margins and stem defending from Waterford.

“Really, really disappointed in a very different manner. I mean, we’ve only lost two games to date. The sense of disappointment I have tonight is different to the sense of disappointment that I had against Galway when we just didn’t perform and we were very poor on the night and were beaten deservedly,” he explained.

“It is a different type of disappointment tonight because I thought we were very, very good for long periods. I thought we were really good. You look at the amount of chances created, we hit the crossbar twice and the post once, and had one taken off the line as well. Add a penalty that we think is stonewall as well.

“I think we’ve created as many goal-scoring chances, definitely quality goal-scoring chances, as they have. 

I think they are one of the best teams in the league. In that sense, I am really, really pleased.

"What stings is the fact his team let in two goals with just over 10 minutes on the clock.

“The second time in three weeks that has happened. Just not good enough,” he said.

“Defensively we’ve been pretty excellent this year, by and large. You do have to caveat a little bit the losses we had in the backline. We’ve lost two fellas out of our three centre-backs.

Three fellas who have been outstanding for us this year.

“To be throwing Charlie (O’Brien) in, Charlie I think is still 17 and you’re throwing him in against a fella who last week looked like the best winger in the league. He’s done well and I’m not trying to hang him at all. But at the same time, I think he will be a bit annoyed with himself on the first goal. So, the bit of disruption in the backline didn’t help.”