Cathal Dowd
Waterford FC manager John Coleman refused to make excuses for his side’s disappointing 1-0 loss away to Sligo Rovers last night.
Waterford fell to Wilson Waweru’s first half strike at The Showgrounds in a damaging defeat to the Blues early European aspirations.
A win for Waterford would have cut the gap to St. Patrick’s Athletic in 4th place to 4 points with a game in hand. Instead, Waterford remain in 8th place, above only the victorious Sligo Rovers and bottom of the table Cork City.
Coleman felt his team had deserved the three points, but had to take ownership of the poor result. “Missed opportunity, we did enough to win the game, we were the better team. We would have been ahead in every stat apart from the goal column, so you’ve just got to accept it, that’s football, if you’re not prepared to lose don’t play the game” he said.
“We didn’t hit the heights I know we can, particularly our attacking threat that been flying in all week in training” Coleman remarked, as Waterford are now the lowest scoring team in the division, “They just weren’t at it as much as they have been and I think if they had come to the party a bit more, and they still played relatively well, I think we’d have won the game comfortably”.
“Did we do enough to win the game? Sure we did, but we didn’t and we have to own that, not go look for any excuses, not going to blame anything, not going to complain about anything. Football is football, it can be a harsh cruel game sometimes.”
Waterford had two penalty claims waved away late on as they pushed for an equalizer, which had Coleman questioning referee consistency on these big decisions, “It’s pointless moaning about it now, we haven’t had a penalty all season, so why start moaning now? I saw the penalty St. Pats got here a couple of weeks ago and it paled in significance to them two, but that’s football”
“You don’t always get the decisions, don’t moan about it, don’t use it as an excuse, own, own your performances” the Englishman insisted. “They’ve already made the excuse, we are a bit rusty after the break, that’s a load of nonsense”.
Waterford will now turn their attention to high flying Bohemains who they host at the RSC on Friday night.
For the latest Waterford News and Sport, tune into WLR News on the hour and download the WLR App for news on demand.
