Back to Winning Ways

Finally, a win! After 4 games, 2 losses, one draw and 3 last minute goals 3 points are finally in the bag, mind you, it was no walk in the park. Two goals from Guntars Sillgalius took us away from the bottom of the table and bagged the first win of the season in what might be a very difficult season to come. The atmosphere was poor on the main and reflected the flatness of the previous home match against St. Pats. Any buzz generated was after a goal and soon fizzled out, this wasn’t helped by terrible drumming which either slowed the chants down to a cripplingly slow pace or just broke them up altogether. The crowd cover at the start of the game complimented with the ‘Play for the Badge’ banner created an excellent display at the start of the game in the Curragh Road End, but there wasn’t a hint of neither a crowd nor a chant 15 minutes from the start. Murmurs of discontent rung around the stands with the news of Danny Murphy’s missed wage, wages were being paid late for other members of staff, but Murphy’s situation coupled with the contract he was pushed towards has not made Coughlan many friends after his dealings with the fans favourite. With this in mind the chants of ‘One Cockney Rebel’ were to be expected before the game and the rallying cry after the game was the fans way of appreciating what the London born full back has done for the club.
The game itself was a lacklustre affair, Bray, weighed down with injuries were inevitably playing for a draw, and despite a menacing shot that whistled past Chris O’Connor and over the bar, chances were few and far between. The game sparked into life when Stephen Brennan got his marching orders for a second bookable offence after a bad tackle on Neal Horgan. The first booking was questionable, Brennan was booked for kicking the ball away after he played a through ball following the referee’s call. To be fair to Brennan it seemed to me that he never heard the whistle and to the best of my knowledge played the ball before the whistle even went, but all things considered, the challenge itself was bordering on a capital offence. We took the lead halfway through the first half when a ball was crossed in and after what we thought was a Behan miss, Sillagalius casually nodded the ball into the back of the net to give him his second tap in in as many games. Following the goal a bizarre moment of stillness occurred before we all remembered how to celebrate a score. The last home goal we scored was that magical Kearney goal that won the Setanta Cup for us. A gap of 4 months and 26 days since our last home goal, you must excuse us for being a little rusty! Half time came and went and in the 59th minute we were two up. Once again Sillagalius was the executioner, a good run through the centre led to a delicate chip over O’Connors head and this time we celebrated properly. Bodies were all over the place and the uniquely accepted man-hug was being fully employed all over the stand. I predicted a Bray goal was going to come soon after and I was correct, a ball in from a free-kick wasn’t dealt with, the ball pinged around the box before it fell to Dave Mulcahy who stuck it home. There was squeaky bum time at the end with a couple of menacing attacks from a Wanderers side with 9 men following Derek Pender’s injury, but we survived to get what could be an important three points come the end of the season.