1 May 2015
Under the circumstances, which I'll explain in a bit, I'm very satisfied with our performance in April.
Almost as soon as March became April, I got bad news from our physio.
Roy Murphy went down in training with a strained groin muscle, and we would be without his services for three weeks. I'd come to regard Roy as virtually indispensable. Our first match without him would be a tough one--away to St. Pat's Athletic--but fortunately for us, the next fixtures didn't look like they'd be quite as challenging.
We fell behind St. Pat's quickly, after
Mark Molloy got turned every which way but loose by their tricky Icelandic forward Siguršur Kjartansson. We clawed our way back in, finally equalizing when
Aaron O'Connor converted a penalty. At that point we were playing without three of our normal starting defenders; I'd subbed off both Molloy and
Kenneth Dķaz, after both (1) drew yellow cards and (2) generally played like donkeys.
I didn't start Molloy against Drogheda United, but I had to call on him when
Alan Woods got a knock. Mark redeemed himself by heading in a corner and doing other
Mark Molloy things.
Declan Nolan took his brace very well, too...but as is often the case when we win,
Kieron Russell was sublime. He completed 104 of 109 passes, including 5 key passes, and set up two of our goals. He also contributed five tackles, a fine performance by a creative player who nonetheless understands his role in our pressing defense.
Cobh Ramblers achieved a boring nil-nil draw by playing the worst kind of anti-football. They took only one shot and couldn't put it on net. They're overmatched in the Premier Division but, to their credit, they parked their bus extremely well.
Athlone Town are listed as one of our rivals but, strangely enough, we're not listed as one of theirs. I'm not sure what that means, but I approached this match with a derby mentality anyway. The media played up its importance, too.
Town are struggling so far this season, and we had no trouble with them.
Roy Murphy got back on the pitch and made good use of his 60 minutes of action. Our victory meant we'd gone six matches without a loss.
That changed before a big, raucous crowd at Derry City. Again, Molloy was responsible for one of their goals. Mark made a hash of a simple backpass to
Darcy Bradford and let their striker cut in front of him to square the ball to a teammate for an easy tap-in. Keep this up, Mark, and I'll let St. Pat's have you, mate.
I was approached by two teams for interviews this month:
Bradford Park Avenue and
Colwyn Bay. They both play in the English Conference North. I turned both of them down. Right now, I'm committed to staying in Galway (that's the premise of this story, after all). However, I am becoming increasingly frustrated by the attitude of the Galway Utd board. I've asked them more than once to allow me to increase the size of our coaching staff, because I'd like to bring in a goalkeeping coach. I'm tired of being told how they agree with my request, but don't have the money to fund it. It's true; we're a couple hundred thousand euro in the red. Nonetheless, it's annoying.
I'm wondering if a brief flirtation with another suitor might make my board more willing to listen to me...?