Ger's thoughts on cup exit

No hair or grey hair. By the end of this season it’s definitely going to be one of them.

With last weekend’s win fresh in the memory, I felt the lads would go into this one full of confidence. Making five changes to the starting eleven certainly carries no excuse as the lads that came in all did extremely well. And to be fair, against a team a division higher, we probably go in at half time the better side. Joycey (Michael Joyce) was a constant threat throughout on the left and Harry (McGill)kept asking questions of their centre backs through the middle. Our goal comes from a really good phase of play on the right hand side and Harry’s movement and eventual finish puts us in a good place. Fine lines change contexts and conceding a goal from a silly free kick just before the half ends, certainly takes a little bit of the shine from their forty five minute performance. So as they say the team talk then has to alter somewhat. But there’s no panic as we were undoubtably more than a match.

The game then has a bonkers fifteen minute period from around the 70 minute mark and it’s over as a contest. The naivety in our mistakes have to stop. I find myself in a real cross fire here. We play so well and then shoot ourselves in the foot. That was the difference today and credit to Stephen Crawford’s men for taking advantage. Maybe I’m just looking at it from the tints of the red and white spectacles but there genuinely wasn’t anything much at all between the sides. But we combust and make some really really poor individual errors. Listen you can forgive mistakes we all make them but you have to learn. We made too many in a short space and to throw five in one half of football after being so competitive is bitterly disappointing. At 2-1 we crack the bar and moments later we concede a penalty. That’s the type of game it was. When we go to 3-1 there’s still plenty of life in the game but then it comes back to our decision making.

It looks like a score line from a serious mismatch and there’s absolutely no comfort once the event is done to be told that the score line flattered the home side. The harsh reality however is that it happened and that’s something we have to shake out of the group.

No game next weekend due to the way the fixtures fall in the league so it will be nothing but hard work as expected going forward. The boys have shown, especially in periods today, that they certainly aren’t far away but collectively we have to find a stronger resilience after making a mistake and then in the tougher moments surviving the storm to at least give yourself a chance. I’ve just got to figure out if there’s a way to coach that part.

The rollercoaster ride continues.