Henderson injury overshadows loss

City of Derry..........................................14

INCONSISTENCY continues to City of Derry’s achilles heel as they slumped to a 24-14 defeat at lowly Midleton, on Saturday.

However also worrying for coach Bevan Lynch will be the serious injury picked up by last season’s top try scorer Peter Henderson.

The weekend’s defeat, which was the Judges Road men’s third in the All-Ireland League Division 2A was disappointing, but the facial injury to full-back Henderson will be of more concern for Lynch.

Henderson suffered a kick to the head and sustained a suspected broken nose and broken cheekbone among other injuries and had surgery yesterday (Tuesday).

“The boys are obviously massively disappointed, as are the management but we were missing key personnel,” explained the Kiwi coach.

“With the likes of Richard McCarter not travelling down, David Houston and Bob McKillop missing - they’re big characters to replace and we certainly need some of those guys to come back, particularly with Peter dropping out of the side.

“That’s the first time Peter’s been taken off in about a year-and-a-half so to lose him is a big blow.

“That had a big bearing on the game when we lost one of our most influential players in Peter Henderson. He received a kick to the head and, if it wasn’t deliberate, it was pretty clumsy and he looks to have a broken cheekbone and broken nose so he has to go for an operation on Tuesday to get a plate put into his head.”

Having defeated Division 1B leaders Ballynahinch in the Ulster Senior Cup in their last outing, spirits were high travelling to Cork, but Lynch concedes his players weren’t hungry enough.

“They certainly seemed to be the hungrier of the two sides,” declared Lynch. “We were disappointed because we just didn’t show the accuracy or the hunger that we showed against Ballynahinch.

“We just didn’t put the game away and it really cost us because we certainly had enough opportunities in the first half to put in beyond their reach.

“We’ve gone from scoring six tries against the Division 1B leaders to basically going 60 minutes without scoring against possibly one of the bottom teams in Division 2A.

“It was probably the lowest point we’ve been as a team for a while because it was a game we should have won and we didn’t. Collectively we weren’t clinical whereas they took their chances.”

The visitors started the game with a purpose and raced into a 14-0 lead but it was their failure to punish Midleton when in the ascendancy which was most frustrating for Lynch.

“We started brightly and we were 14-0 up after the first 20 minutes and in total control but unfortunately we missed four or five opportunities to put the game out of reach.

“We then conceded a try right on half-time as they came back to 14-10 which gave them a bit of belief that they could win. And like all Munster sides, they dug in deep and played tight.

“It all went downhill from Peter’s injury and they got a try with about 20 minutes to go which put them ahead 17-14.

“We fought our way back into it but got held up at the line twice when Stephen Ferguson and David Funston got caught just short. So we missed those opportunities to go ahead and unfortunately leaked a try at the end.”

The Derry management won’t be too concerned with the start the club has made as the top of the table remains in sight but Lynch knows they must improve when they take on high flying Old Wesley this weekend.

“The grade is very, very close. Had we picked up five points down in Cork we would’ve been seventh in the table, as it is we’re 14th in the table.

“After four weeks there’s no team that have won all their games. It’s a grade that’s going to be super competitive which is great, but we need to get some consistency in our game.

“All the top teams lost at the weekend to teams that were below us. We’re something like nine points adrift from the top of the table and it would’ve been nice to close it up to four points and be right in the mix but it wasn’t to be.”