Image Credit: Mark McDermott / Shamrock Rovers F.C.

Wexford was a heavy defeat in our second group game of the All-Island Cup. How did you feel about the performance on the day?

It was a little bit short on our normal standard but I suppose when you’re making so many changes, it is a little difficult for the players to be fully up the speed. A lot of the players coming in didn’t really have much game time over the course of the season. Overall, lots of things to work on but there’s always some good positives out of it as well. Some of the reactions and the attitude of the players in the aftermath has been positive.

Defensively, did you think we could have done better for some of the goals conceded?

We could have done an awful lot better for every single one of the goals. I think maybe every one of the goals came from mistakes from us, and it’s something that we need to work on on the training pitch, but I suppose when you have some players playing within the team that haven’t played much and haven’t really been up to the speed, these kinds of mistakes do happen.

On the positive side, all three of our goals were great strikes by Lauren, Stephanie and Jaime although it was only consolation in the end, but was it nice for Steph to get her first goal for the club?

It was. Steph has put in an extreme amount of hard work over the last couple of weeks to get back onto the pitch. It’s one of those things that people only see what she does when she’s on the pitch. But some of the work that she’s been doing in training has been outstanding. She’s really pushed herself to the absolute limit to try and get back onto the pitch. It’s nice to see her get that reward of a goal and I expect many more from her in the coming weeks.

Next the team travel to Glentoran at Blanchflower Stadium in Belfast. They’re one of the best sides up north, what do we know about them?

We played them in pre-season. We were up there and they’re a very, very good side. They’re a good footballing side. They play football in a really, really good, positive manner. A lot of their strength is that they will punish you if you make the slightest mistake, and we found that in pre-season. They will really capitalise on any kind of fault that you have, particularly across the back four. So, we’re going to have to try and learn from the mistakes that we made last weekend and make sure that we were not making the same this week, because we’ll be punished twice as much with the good attacking lineup that they have.

It’ll be tough to qualify from the group but you’ll continue to use the squad in this tournament and the aim will obviously be to recover and hopefully put in a positive performance?

Yeah, it’s still a lot of development process and trying to build on top of some of the good work that we’ve done. So, all the players we have in our squad, we need to give them a fair amount of game time, just to see where they’re at. Then it allows us as a club to assess what areas we need to maybe bring in extra players and make improvements, what areas we need to work on, to make not just the team stronger but the squad as a whole stronger. Although, like last weekend, you suffer some pain along the way, there are some positives out of it because it helps us get a better picture of where we need to grow and where we need to develop in a couple of months.

Any new injuries going into Sunday?

No new injuries. We’re hoping to have Shauna Fox back in contention. Maria Reynolds is continuing her comeback and she will be targeting the FAI Cup game after the mid-season break.

Were you and everyone at the club delighted that Áine and Abbie made the World Cup squad?

I was absolutely delighted to see both of them in it. Not just even for Shamrock Rovers, I’m delighted for them because they’ve been brilliant. They put in an awful lot of hard work and it’s nice to see that they’ve got the rewards for all the work that they’ve put in.