Ramblers manager Keegan delighted with win as they prepare for final playoff push

SHANE Keegan was very pleased after Cobh Ramblers secured a second consecutive 1-0 win at home, as they defeated Athlone Town to move five points ahead and consolidate their position in third, as he expressed in his post match interview with The Echo.

“Absolutely delighted”, he beings. “It’s a hard game to summarise, I felt we were utterly dominant to the point where we scored the goal, and then as can, but shouldn’t happen, it was ridiculous how much we allowed them back into the game.

“Lee [Steacy] has made one absolutely outstanding save, and another really good one where he’s touched it over the crossbar, and then Tiernan [O’Brien]’s block.

“He’s a brilliant goalkeeper, I think on the Wyscout Stats, he’s 30 or 40 saves ahead of second place for the season, that’s how impressive he’s been.

“He’s been a mainstay for us in a division where seven of the 10 clubs have changed keeper at some point this season, as in dropped their keeper and tried a new one.

“We rode our luck a little bit towards the end, but it really was only the end,” he says. “You’d be hard pressed to argue that we weren’t the better side for the vast, vast majority of that game.” 

Speaking on Doherty’s goal, Shane remarks; “It's mad that we’re at a stage when there’s a free kick in that area, there’s nearly an expectancy that there’s going to be a goal. He’s got that much quality.

“It was a superb strike, I thought he was a constant thorn in their side again all night. There was a lot more to us winning tonight’s game than just Jack’s quality. Again, I thought the three centre-halves were just outstanding for us as they have been on a regular basis.” 

Boasting a squad with incredible depth doesn’t come with consequences, and the worry of players becoming unsettled is something that will always come to fore.

“The squad depth is the biggest plus that we have, while also being the biggest headache that I have”, Keegan explains. “You think you have a problem when you’re telling lads that they’re not in the starting 11.

Imagine the phone calls you’re making to fellas when you’re telling them that they’re not in the matchday 20, and we’ve had to do that.

“You need the squad players now to show real patience, because we’re going so well. We’ve had the same starting 11 this week as we did last week, that’s the first time in months I’ve done that.

“If anything proves the strength in the squad, it’s probably the fact that a player who did become disenchanted, and I can understand how, in Jake Hegarty, has dropped down to the Munster Senior League and score back-to-back hattricks this week.

“That is the gap in standards that exists. I had no doubt that Jake would drop back down and score a load of goals and make a fool out of me, and he’s done that already!

“I think the 22nd of this month is the closing date for us releasing players to the Munster Senior League. There may be one or two who decide ‘listen, I have to get back on the field a bit more often’ and that could happen, but there’s certainly nobody in that dressing room that I want to leave, that’s for sure.”