Good afternoon all,

Welcome to John Russell and all from Sligo Rovers for today’s game. It’s not every week we play on a Monday and certainly not at 3.00pm! Sligo come into this game on the back of playing a home game against Shamrock Rovers last Friday while we were away to Derry at the same time. I can’t comment on those results as this article was written prior to Friday due to printing deadlines but here’s hoping that we have beaten Derry and Sligo have beaten Shamrock Rovers.

Sligo always play a good brand of football and in Max Mata they probably have the form player in the division so far. He will need to be closely marshalled by our defence along with everyone else. Our last home game was against Shamrock Rovers, and while we were all disappointed to come out on the wrong side of a 2-0 defeat I felt on another night we could have come away with a point but then again Rovers had a couple of other chances to score where Dean Lyness made some really excellent saves.

I thought we started both halves well but without really getting behind the Rovers defence to trouble Alan Mannus. The first goal came in the 20th minute when Johnny Kenny fired home from the edge of the box after Lee Grace played a long ball into what seemed like a huge gap in our defence for Kenny to run into unopposed and he made no mistake with his powerful shot beating Lyness on his near post which woke up the Rovers fans who had been quiet up to this point. It was a disappointing goal to give away as it wasn’t like they had carved us open from a number of passes. We came close to an equaliser when Chris Forrester’s glancing header from a corner was inches away from dropping in at the back post but unfortunately for us it went the wrong side of the upright.

The second goal came in the 69th minute and that was an even more frustrating goal to concede, I’m taking nothing away from Trevor Clarkes brilliant strike into the top corner that two keepers wouldn’t have stopped but it was again very frustrating to see Clarke pick up the ball on the half way line and run straight at our goal between what looked like four Pats players and not one trip him and give a foul away. Hopefully we will learn from these incidents because the better teams are cuter in these situations and will take a yellow card rather than give up chances like that. We had a couple of half chances from shot’s outside the box as the game progressed, one in particular when Jake Mulraney forced Mannus into a diving save from his stinging shot.

I felt we played well in patches but in truth we didn’t do enough to feel too aggrieved with the final score. It was great to see Jake back available because he is a real threat in the final third and I must give mention to Adam Murphy who gets better and better the more I see him and it’s clear to see just why he is so highly rated and thought of. Happy May Day Bank Holiday everyone, here's hoping for a Pat’s win.