Soccer:Having worked so hard during the last month to overhaul their rivals at the top of the table, Bohemians boss Pat Fenlon admits that his side have most likely thrown the title away with another poor performance against Galway United on Friday night.
Well beaten by Sligo in the cup a week ago, the defending champions handed United three handy goals at Terryland Park while failing to put away their chances at the other end, shortcomings that Fenlon reckoned would cost them dearly next weekend.
“In the end I think that the best team will win the league and I wouldn’t expect Rovers to let it slip again,” he said after what had clearly been some emotional exchanges in the Bohemians dressing room in the wake of Friday’s defeat.
“The fact is that we weren’t good enough,” he continued. “We didn’t defend properly and we didn’t take the chances that we created. In the circumstances, we got what we deserved.
“In fairness to Rovers, they probably thought that it was gone. But we knew that realistically we had to win the two games. But we haven’t done that, maybe we didn’t have the desire and they (Rovers) haven’t won enough titles, maybe that’s the difference in the end.”
Fenlon admitted that the future of the players and management team at Bohemians is entirely up in the air because of the club’s financial problems although he suggested that even winning the league probably wouldn’t have generated enough money to make a significant difference to the situation.
“That’s the disappointing thing. There are lots of staff at the club who have been tremendous and they don’t know what their futures are after next week.” Asked about his own position, he replied: “Well, I have a contract until 2013 and if I have to work with kids next year, that’s not a problem. I’m not going to walk out on a club that’s been good to me, that’s for sure.”
Sean Connor, meanwhile, denied that he was in any way motivated by feeling he still has a score to settle with his former employers after seeing his side secure a third win of the season against the Dubliners.
“Look,” he said, “I went to court, I won my case and I got my money. I’d want to be a very bitter man to be still thinking that way after all that. The reality is that I tell my players to play that way every week, maybe it’s them that has the grudge against Bohemians because they seem to do it alright against them.”
Still, there will have been some dismay in the Bohemians camp about the way the home side went for the win late on despite being under severe pressure with Connor throwing on a second striker for a full-back in the hope of grabbing a late goal.
“Yeah, we’d been working on the 4-1-4-1 all week but we agreed that if we were still in the game with 15 minutes to go that we’d go for it. And I’m delighted for Jason Molloy (scorer of the third Galway goal and a key figure in the other two), he showed great composure out there tonight. We all know he has that sort of talent, the challenge for him now is to produce it week in week out.”
The same, of course, could be said for United generally for Connor’s side, having 10 points against last year’s champions to pretty much derail their title defence, will have to survive the play-offs now in order to maintain their own top flight status.