Croly - Pitch was the reason for poor game

Shamrock Rovers manager Trevor Croly was less than pleased with the condition of the Dalymount Park pitch following his side's 0-0 draw with Bohemians in what was a drab Dublin derby on Monday afternoon.

Both teams struggled to play any sort of attractive football on a pitch that was cutting up from the get-go, and has received a lot of negative comments since the match. Speaking to the assembled press after the game, Croly was quick to point out that the faults with the pitch.

“The pitch was a factor in everything. I thought it was a poor game. I thought the surface was really poor. How can you play on that? It was very disappointing. There was only one shot in the game that I can remember, that was when Barry [Murphy] made a save”.

“If we’re going to try and produce a league and a product that people will come to, it has to be better. If it’s [the surface] poor, you get poor games. It’s something I think, as a league, we need to do better.”

Croly felt that the poor pitch probably went against Rovers’ opponents more so than his side.

“It probably went against Bohemians today because when you’ve an extra man, you want to move the ball quickly but you can’t on that. So it was probably in our favour today.”

Despite this however, the former St. Pat’s player was happy with the determination and resolve shown by his players to grind out a result, despite having a man sent off so early on.

“I’m happy with the endeavour and the effort. We did well. Our lads showed great resolve, they did great and got a great point in difficult circumstances, with Derek being sent off and Jason getting injured and having to basically just stand up front. So from our point, the lads did great”.

Derek Foran’s sending off was the result of two yellow cards within the space of three minutes. Unlike the pitch, this was something that Croly had no complaints about.

“From where I was it looked like it was a blatant one. Maybe I’m being slightly wrong, maybe I’m being unjust on Derek but I think he dived in without realising the second after [the first yellow card]”.

Jason McGuinness picked up an injury towards the end of the game that would have seen him go off under normal circumstances but, in this case, Rovers had used all three of their substitutions, prompting Croly to put him up front for the closing minutes.

“It was his hamstring, so hopefully it’s reasonably minor and he’s back quick. If you look at him [when he was up front] he just stood there effectively. It was just if maybe a corner came in, he might be able to get on the end of it. But we instructed him to stay as passive as possible. That was a bit of a strange one; telling one of your players to do very little!”