Nemo Rangers boss Robbie O'Dwyer far from pleased despite comfortable win over Douglas

Despite an easy 1-15 to 1-7 triumph over southside rivals Douglas, Nemo Rangers boss Robbie O’Dwyer was far from content last Friday evening.

A sizable crowd turned up to Páirc Uí Rinn for the McCarthy Insurance Group Premier SFC Group 3 Round 2 battle.

Nemo Rangers led by six points early on before the lead extended to 12 points at half-time. They had the game pretty much wrapped up. The Trabeg-based outfit did go some 20 minutes without a score and only managed four points in a disjointed second 30 minutes. Still, they never looked like being clawed back.

“A comfortable enough win in the end, but we are very disappointed with our second half performance,” O’Dwyer said post-match.

“That's not us. We spoke to them at half-time, we wanted to push on. We just were a bit lethargic, we weren't doing what we were doing for probably the last 20 minutes of the first half.

“We were giving the ball away, bad options and that's something to work on, so I suppose that's a good thing maybe.

“In the first half, we kicked some great scores, great movement and when we ran at Douglas I thought we caused them problems and we got the scores we needed.

“I'm a firm believer of kicking the ball, moving the ball at pace and getting it into the forward line as quickly as possible. We do a lot of that in training.” 

Starting the game on the front foot was a key objective for Nemo Rangers having been behind the eight ball against Ballincollig in the opening group game. They trailed by five points at the short whistle before wresting back the situation.

“We didn't start as quickly as we'd like to,” the Kerry native says.

“I wanted them to play like they played in the last 15 minutes of the second half against Ballincollig. We eventually found our groove and the goal really helped us push on.

“But look, at the end of the day, we got the win, we came to get the win, just disappointed with a few things in the second half. We've time to work on that, time to improve and hopefully we'll get better.” 

Nemo Rangers have two wins from two games and as a result of Ballincollig’s draw with St Michael’s on Sunday, O’Dwyer’s charges are through to the business end with a game to spare.

“I mean look, we came to win our first two games, we've won our first two games. Obviously we want to win our last game as well in three weeks' time to really push on. At the end of the day we want to win all our matches, that's our aim anyway.” 

Injuries are a bit of a worry, but with a three-week break to the final group game against St Michael’s, it gives the respective Nemo players time.

Kevin Fulignati and Bríain Murphy limped off with just cramp while O’Dwyer also hopes that Ronan Dalton’s hamstring is not torn, but rather a precautionary withdrawal. Paul Kerrigan is back in training after a calf issue. Barry Cripps’ back injury is more concerning. Finally, the Nemo boss confirmed that Ross Corkery is ruled out for the remainder of the season after undergoing knee surgery.