AFTER Cobh Ramblers’ 2-2 draw with Athlone Town, Shane Keegan expressed frustration at the result, though hailed the work-rate and performance of his side.

"I think we probably just about did enough to win the game. It was very important that once we didn’t win the game, that we didn’t lose it either. I’m maybe contradicting myself there, but we got some very good goals. Look at the chances at the end – the save from Jake [Hegarty’s shot] and Liam Kervick’s [effort] trickling just wide at the back post.

“Anytime that our backs are to the wall, we do seem to deliver a good performance, and I do think that was a good performance. Players have run themselves into the ground. You can see Tiernan [O’Brien] walking past limping, Luke [Desmond] is limping, Brendan Frahill has blood running down out the back of his head. We certainly couldn’t have asked any more in terms of effort.

“Quality, I thought we were better on the ball tonight than off the ball, and most of the time we’ve been the other way around. On the ball tonight we were quite good, off it, we were a bit open and easy to play through at times, so that’s the key thing that we have to analyse.” 

 A rare error from experienced goalkeeper Lee Steacy led to Athlone’s equaliser. 

"The manner of the equalising goal... it’s very hard to be too harsh. 

All you can say on it really is that Lee is still well and truly in the surplus column with us.

“I’m no goalkeeping coach but I’d say he’ll probably question his own technique; maybe should he have cupped it rather than palmed it.

“The save he’s made in the first half, at his near post was absolutely outstanding, and the stats show that he’s made more saves than any other goalkeeper in the whole First Division this season. He’s still well and truly in the surplus column that’s for sure, and we still managed to nearly go and win the game anyway.

“The second [goal conceded] is a freak incident, I think every club in this division will have one, maybe two of them over the course of the season, where a defender scores a ridiculous own goal, or somebody makes a horrendous error. As I say, Lee’s been outstanding for us this year, [so] that kind of thing will happen." 

KEY DECISION

Next up is Bray on Friday.

"All the stats say that they’re the team that pass the ball around the most in the division, they’ve more passes played than anybody.

“They consistently do that, that was Ian Ryan’s stamp on Wexford last year and it’s his stamp on [Bray] this year. So that’s what we’re going to come up against, and when you’re on the other end of that, you’ve got two options.

“Do you take the risky route and go and press them in their half and see can you turn them over, or do you drop off, leave them have it and say, ‘try and come through us’. That’s the key decision for us, we need to decide which of those two approaches we’re going to take."