Collie O'Neill - It wasn't good enough

Andrew Dempsey reports from the UCD Bowl

It was a night to forget for UCD at the UCD Bowl on Monday evening as they fell to a bitterly disappointing 2-0 home defeat to Sligo Rovers.

Dante Leverock and David Cawley profited from some poor defending at set piece scenarios to secure all three points for Liam Buckley’s side.

Speaking after the game, UCD boss Collie O’Neill admitted that his side were not good enough against the North-Westerners.

“It’s down to us, our tempo and how we use the ball and how we react off it, and that wasn’t good enough tonight”, the 42-year-old said.

“I don’t think they surprised us.

“When you try to analyse what’s going to be up against us it was different.

“We went to the Showgrounds and they used a 4-3-3 against us but in the last few weeks they’ve been using a diamond in the midfield with two up top.

“So, for them to use a 4-4-2 tonight was unexpected but it doesn’t matter.”

With the clash against the Bit O’Red being the Students eighth game in less than a month, O’Neill also suggested that tiredness was an issue for his side on Monday evening.



 “There’s a lot of tiredness in there. We just never got going and it looked like our brains were elsewhere really.

“There was a lack of energy, lack of enthusiasm but there was plenty of tiredness in there.”

UCD must now react to Monday’s defeat on Friday night away to Finn Harps in Ballybofey in what will be looked at as a must-not-lose game for the Students.