City of Derry coach not panicking ahead of 'must win' Tullamore clash

Head Coach Paul O’Kane is refusing to hit the panic button despite admitting this week’s visit of Tullamore has become ‘must win’ after City of Derry slipped to an Ulster derby defeat to Bangor on Saturday.
Watch more of our videos on Shots! 
and live on Freeview channel 276
Visit Shots! now

The 7-14 loss keeps Derry second bottom in ninth place and leaves the locals in danger of becoming detached from the teams above as the season enters its final third with O’Kane’s men now facing a fight to retain their AIL status rather than eyeing a late push for fourth.

“Next week is must win. It is as simple as that,” admitted O’Kane, “If we don’t win next week we will put ourselves in trouble. You have to win your home games.

“As I said to the boys, we came out from our meetings with Bangor equal. We beat them down there but they picked up a losing point and now they’ve beaten us but we picked up a losing bonus. That’s fair enough. It’s now more about what we do from here.

City of Derrys Stephen Carr battles through the conditions and Bangor players at the Craig Thompson Stadium on Saturday afternoon last. DER0720GS - 021City of Derrys Stephen Carr battles through the conditions and Bangor players at the Craig Thompson Stadium on Saturday afternoon last. DER0720GS - 021
City of Derrys Stephen Carr battles through the conditions and Bangor players at the Craig Thompson Stadium on Saturday afternoon last. DER0720GS - 021

“We have six games - six ‘cup finals’ - but with three home games to go, I believe we need to win every one of them and then we need to pick up something on the road and that’s going to take a massive effort moving forward from the boys.

“We have to stay positive. It is not time to push the panic button just yet but the boys are under no illusions.

“We could have won that game today and it would have built momentum going into next week. I think it genuinely would have put you up towards pushing for fourth place. Now we are going to be slightly disconnected in ninth.”

It was a frustrating afternoon for City of Derry who had to play second fiddle to a dominant Bangor pack but still had more than enough opportunities to win the game.

“It was very frustrating. I thought we were second best to everything in the first half,” conceded O’Kane, “Bangor, to a large extent, bullied us. Second half, I thought the boys stepped it up but our decision making absolutely killed us.

“We were kicking when we had four on one while the decision at the end to take a tap penalty when we had just mauled them for 20m was not what we needed at that time. The last line-out, that’s just simple inaccuracy and that was probably the story of the day for us. It is what we will try to hammer home when we dissect it through the week.

“From my end, defensively we were too passive in the first half but much better in the second. I don’t want to hide behind it too much but I thought the referee wasn’t great at the breakdown. He turned it into a bit of a dogfight in there and that suited Bangor. It slowed the ball down but again, the game management from us wasn’t there. We weren’t on the money today.

“It was a big blow to lose Alex (McDonnell, to injury) as well. Alex is our most natural ‘10 and then to have Logie forced off as well, that was a big blow.

“We haven’t gone too overboard in what we have said to them because we know they are hurting but we can categorically say we are in a dogfight for the rest of the year as regards relegation and we have to react to this positively and beat Tullamore next week. There is no other result.”

O’Kane had no qualms about the decision to let the game go ahead in what was atrocious weather but admitted the heavy storm conditions suited the heavier, more physical Bangor side better than Derry.

“They played the conditions better and played the referee better. They had a fairly simplistic game-plan to use their one out ball carriers, they are heavier, they are bulkier and Bangor got them into the right areas to make it count.

“We knew that was going to happen. It was up to us to keep them out of those areas and we didn’t. Bangor were cute with the scrum and I talked to the referee at half-time about it. I thought they were building pressure two or three minutes before the ball was allowed to go in and that’s a big ask when you are trying to deal with that type of pack. To a man we were probably two or three stone lighter.

“Bangor’s front row has dismantled every team in this league. We negated that in the game up there but we didn’t today. They got scrum penalty after scrum penalty when they needed them. They knew when to put the real squeeze on. They didn’t waste energy in the middle of the pitch. They were more game savvy than us.

“We got physically on par in the second half but you cannot leave those chances out there on a day like today. The kick when you have a four on one is a daft decision and those opportunities toward the end, they cost us.”