Matt Keane
Waterford FC manager Marc Bircham was bouncing around the press area when he spoke about the victory over Bohemians in the Premier League.
The previous Friday he was downbeat and heartbroken but on Monday night he was back to his very best form.
The Blues had a small contingent to avail of for their 2-1 win, but they made the most of what was available.
“I keep saying how proud I am of this group of players, but today is probably the proudest I’ve been since I’ve come here. We’re bare bones like, and while they made some changes, we couldn’t really make any. We had Paul Martin, who is coming back from a broken foot, and he’s not even trained. We had to test out his foot yesterday while kicking a ball. We’ve piled painkillers into him, and literally that’s the first time he has kicked a ball. I thought he was magnificent."
Midfielder Ronaldo Green made his debut for the Blues - and Bircham was very impressed with his display.
“We have young Ronaldo, who had come from the Bahamas. This is like Antarctic weather for him because it’s never below 15 degrees out there, and they wear ski jackets at that. He hasn’t been over training full time that long, and there’s no professional football out there. I’ve seen that he has the ability. It’s a great debut for him. You’ve got the old guys, Woody, Greg and Eddie Nolan. We didn’t think that they’d be able to play in these games, but they’ve had to. Greg looks like he has broken his ribs there, Eddie has done his knee, but they are all carrying on.
Bircham admitted that he was disappointed with the performance in the FAI Cup Semi-Final, but analysis of that performance helped steal three points.
“Everyone was saying how unlucky we was the other night, and that we probably deserved a draw, but in-house we were disappointed with our performance because we played nowhere near as good as we can play, and I think that the occasion got to them. I showed them some incidences in the analysis before the game tonight on what we should have done better, and our throw-ins were awful the other night, so we changed it. We managed to get a goal off it tonight with the fake throw that we worked on. Credit to them. We’re like the walking wounded. We had three suspended. Prince, bless him, the other night done his cruciate. People were booing him when he was trying to carry on, but I think his cruciate is still out on the pitch. We’ve got a tight nit family group."
At half time, the Waterford FC boss said the players were feeling sorry for themselves - and joked Terry Waite would have found it claustrophobic in the Dalymount Park dressing rooms.
“I thought that they were feeling sorry for themselves at half time. I told them don’t. it was our mistake for the goal. Greg should have stepped up, and he knows that, but I said that I think I believe in you more than yourselves. Now stop feeling sorry for yourselves, go out there and show them what you can do. That’s the reason why I sent them out early. It’s a bit claustrophobic in there) that I even think Terry Waite would think that it’s claustrophobic in that dressing room so I decided to get them out early, have a kick about, got in a huddle. I told them to have some belief and try win the game.
The boss reserved specific praise for John Martin who continued his rich vein of form by grabbing the equaliser.
“It was another world class goal from John Martin! He has scored some screamers this year! Like I said to him before you might 15 goals like that a year, but from strikes outside the box, you might get two or three. I played with a player Tim Cahill at Millwall, who wouldn’t touch the ball for 90 minutes, but would be in the right place to put it in. John has a great knack there, and he worked his socks off tonight. Everyone did. Junior (Quitirna) is not an out and out centre forward, but the way that he worked. The same with Phoenix when he got on the ball like you’ve seen. He didn’t get on the ball the other night, and he didn’t run at them.
"As a group we were great. Young Stringer has come on, and he hasn’t trained with us much. He done a job for us, and you see how happy the players that didn’t play were at the final whistle. That’s how you can tell you have a team spirit by the players that haven’t played. They are just as happy as the ones that have. Look we’re like a bad cold, the other teams can’t shake us off. We’re going to keep trying to win every game."
Bircham says his players keep defying the odds - and will continue to do so going forward.
“it’s going to be the highest points total ever to stay in the league, and we’re the form team in the league. We keep defying odds, we keep winning. People don’t give us any chance, but that’s the way we like it, and we’re getting the results.”
Commenting ahead of the Dundalk game, Bircham added:
“I think that I’m going to have get a load of painkillers and inject them all the way they’ve been going. I might see if that Eastern European doctor is about because we might need him. It is the walking wounded.
“We should get Kyle and Niall back from their suspensions. Hopefully the disciplinary hearings go ok, but I don’t know what goes on in them hearings so I’m not counting any chickens. We go into every game looking forward to it. We’re looking forward to it. We’ve got five games left. We have got to try win as many as we can. We’ve got a fantastic game away to Dundalk so let’s bring it on.”
