Ger Nash admits City ‘lacked quality’ as away woes drag on

Another away trip, another defeat. For Cork City, United Park brought only more of the same – a 1-0 loss to Drogheda United, another blank on the road, and a reminder that the only meaningful destination left this season is the Aviva for the FAI Cup final.

With relegation already confirmed, the league table is of little consequence now, but the pattern of away defeats is still one that grates.

“We are really disappointed with that,” manager Ger Nash said post-match. “The players are, and the fans are sick of it.

“We've got one more game now to get that monkey off our back, and get that stat cleared up with an away win, and we're desperate to do that.” 

If the result didn’t sting, the manner of it will. Nash felt his side were “relatively resolute” defensively, but admitted the killer moment came from their own doing.

“I thought in the first half the game was pretty even, and obviously we probably were more in control, without having a real cutting edge. It was the first time as well, Conor Drinan's played in a long time, well over a year, so I think there's a factor there in terms of our front players.

“I think it was a game with very few clear-cut chances, and ultimately they took theirs on the stroke at half-time, so I'm disappointed with the goal we conceded, because we were attacking, in a good position on the pitch. We turned the ball over too cheaply.

From that we ended up having to defend, and we don't defend the cross into our six-yard box, and I think our centre-halves won't want to watch that back.

If the first half was at least balanced, the second was barren. City chased the game but rarely looked like troubling their opponents.

CHASING

“In the second half, we were chasing the goal, I thought we lacked quality in the final third, ultimately,” Nash admitted. “We also made a lot of changes, Conor and Brody [Lee] came off, Charlie Hannover came on, new academy kid, so we made a lot of changes, we had to be adaptable.

“We’d a couple of things happen at half-time,” he explained. “We made three substitutions, we reacted to a couple of things, Evan [McLaughlin] was on the yellow card, a couple of bumps and bruises for players.

“We never really built enough attacking rhythm, and ultimately lacked quality in the final third. So the game finished the way it did, because of the concession of their goal, and the fact we didn't have that quality in the second half, especially to create when we needed to.” 

The rotation didn’t end there. There were already five changes from Monday night, and the most notable absentee was Seani Maguire.

“We left Seani Maguire out for a specific reason, we spent a long time on the coach today, and we didn’t want to risk him. We wanted to have a look at other players as well, just to keep him fresh.

“He's played a lot of football lately, he's been a real leader for the team, on and off the pitch, and we just felt we'd leave him out if we wanted to look at other players, so Conor Drinan stepped in as well, which was good for him, and really pleased for him to have been out so long. He did himself proud and didn't let anybody down, that's for sure.” 

That theme of opportunity ran throughout Nash’s selection.

“Brody Lee’s been training hard, he's also just been called up for the U17 World Cup, so he's full a confidence. He did well, I was pleased for him.

“Alongside that, Kaedyn Kamara has obviously not been in the team in recent weeks, he's got an opportunity, Sean Murray, similar, his last start was against Pat’s in the league,” Nash explained. “So those couple of players needed the game. Matthew Kiernan, and Fiacre Kelleher obviously got another 90 minutes in, which was important for him.

“We obviously shared a lot of the minutes in for people like Evan [McLaughlin], and Charlie Lyons, Freddie Anderson, Alex Nolan.”