GUEST WRITER - Seamus O'Brien - gives his report on Blues match

LIMERICK F.C. V's THE BLUES
JACKMAN PARK

1 Wayne Russell Made a couple of great saves on his debut or the Blues 7/10
2 Kevin O’ Brien Honest effort on right wing 6/10
3 John Frost Defended well, distribution needs to improve 6/10
4 Andy Cosgrove Impressive in first half, growing in confidence 7/10
5 Paul Leahy Must share the blame for the goals 4/10
6 Wayne Fitzgerald As usual gave his all 9/10
7 Kevin Waters Did nothing 3/10
8 Kelvin Flanagan After 20 mins he wanted to watch East Enders 0/10
9 Ritchie Lopez Buzzed about all game 8/10
10 Joe Watson Tired as game went on 6/10
11 Brendan Rea Like Leahy, must hold his hands up for goals 4/10

Subs
12 Brian Mallon replaced injured Cossie 4/10
14 Gavin Phelan replaced Joey 3/10
15 Ronan Stanley replaced Frosty 4/10

Like Gary Dempsey must have thought when he made his Blues debut in a 4-0 humiliation at Jackman Park last season, so too must Wayne Russell have questioned the sanity of moving to Waterford United after witnessing the most heartless display for a long time by the Blues.

Confusingly for the travelling Blues support, all 3 of us, the Blues took to the pitch in a green strip, and an ugly early 80’s look it had too. Apparently the new white kit has not arrived yet, but we are unlikely to lose any of our star names a la Roy Keane. The Blues controlled the opening exchanges and Ritchie Lopez was a real livewire up front with Joey, and on 11 minutes these two played a lovely one two and Joey slotted the ball home.

Straight away from the kick off Limerick came back at United and they were unlucky not to equalise as their number 9 shot over. In the 16th minute, however, a long ball from the Limerick right went straight through our static central defence of Rae an Leahy and Browne blasted the ball passed Russell.

Minutes later Flanagan lost the ball in midfield and after walking through fumbling Rae and bumbling Leahy it was left to Wayne Russell to make a fantastic point blank save from the Limerick attacker.

Lopez turned the Lims defence inside out in the only other real attack of he first half, but when he should have taken a shot, he instead, pulled the ball across for Joey who was not expecting the pass and it ran wide of both Joey and the goal.

The second half was so dull that we ended up chatting to a couple of really enthusiastic Limerick fans, who told us about their great night in Derry for the League Cup final last season.

On the pitch, Kelvin Flanagan proved for me at least that he has no bottle, no heart and no interest in playing for Waterford United. When we signed Kelvin, I thought that he would be the strong force we needed to replace Rennie in the middle, but unlike Rennie, and unlike Brendan Rae too, Flanagan has no passion for the Blues. If only we could bottle Big Brendan’s spirit and give all new signings a swig of it, we would be flying.

Andy Cosgrove was assaulted by goal scorer Browne in the 50th min. and he duly received a straight red for his challenge. Cosgrove could not continue and was replaced by Brian Mallon, who didn’t put a foot wrong until the last minute when he allowed the ball to run under his foot and in the crazy melee that followed O’Flynn, on loan from Cork City, nicked the winner.

After the game I spoke to Wayne Russell, who said “ You wouldn’t see that kind of defending in the park in a kids game”. He was right. Manager Jimmy McGeough was reportedly furious with the performance, and the players didn’t even do a warm down, such was the roasting they got in the dressing room afterwards.

Okay, we were poor, we made some bad mistakes, but we will have achieved nothing, if we don’t learn from these errors, put them right and move on from this. It’s all very to say that its only the First Division Cup, but that’s not the point, the point is that we have several players who are not good enough to play at this level and there is no room for sentiment here, we need to replace them.

The only pluses to come out of this game, were the performances of Russell, Cosgrove, Lopez and man of the match Wayne Fitzgerald, who looks even better than last season.

Darryl Murphy was away on holidays, Vinny Sullivan is close to a return from injury, Alex Dixon will be clear to play soon, so there is light at the end of the tunnel….. let’s just hope for all of our sake’s that it’ not an on-coming train….!!!

Seamus O’ Brien