Gavin Cooney

FIRST DROGHEDA EARNED their point and then Kevin Doherty made his. 

The FAI Cup holders earned a spot in the President’s Cup final ahead of the season’s start, where a comprehensive defeat to Shelbourne added a bit more heft to what has become an annual tradition: pre-season previews tipping Drogheda for relegation. 

Doherty has consistently defied Drogheda’s doomsayers, but he could not hide his annoyance at what he had heard and read in the build-up to their opening-night, goalless draw away to St Patrick’s Athletic. 

“I’m sick of saying it already, but before a ball was kicked everyone was writing us off, everyone”, said Doherty in his post-game press conference. “I watched a couple of previews, it comes up on your phone and sometimes you can’t avoid them. We have got a point from a game so we’re not getting carried away, but at times it’s as if we had never played a game before, me and Daire [Doyle, assistant manager] have never managed before, like we’ve never been successful before. Honestly some of the stuff I heard this week…

“We’re playing against a seriously good team in St Pat’s, an unbelievable squad and an excellent manager, but we may as well have not turned up tonight listening to everyone.

“Not one person I heard even thought we had a half a chance in this game. We’re not celebrating anything, it’s the first game of the season, but we’re playing against a team that are title favourites, and rightly so, they are class, but I had that bit of fire in my belly today because of that.

“I heard some ridiculous stuff after the President’s Cup, which is essentially a pre-season friendly. Friends of mine saying stuff, by the way, ‘They are miles off’. We didn’t have to be ready for last week. As much as it would have been nice to win the President’s Cup, we had a couple of knocks and had to mind a few players, we had to make sure we were ready for 14 February. 

“It’s really early to be saying that type of stuff, so it really annoyed me. We will lose plenty of games this year. We finished ninth and won the Cup, an amazing achievement, but we have to fight and scrap for every single point we get. Other clubs are doing [full-time training] a lot longer than us, even Cork who have come up have been full time for the last number of years.” 

Doherty didn’t go into the specifics of what annoyed him, but said he and his players deserve more respect. 

“Yeah, the club and the players. I can understand why some people would have tipped St Pat’s at home to beat Drogheda, but some of the nature of it…and the reaction to the Jim Malone Cup [pre-season friendly against Dundalk] we won three years in a row, and the President’s Cup the first time the club was in it, it was if we had never played a game of football before with some of the stuff I was listening to.

“It can’t be like this all the time, always out with a point to prove, but sometimes you need that. It was annoying. It’d be easier to say that after coming in here with a win, but we should have had the chance to win it.

“Again, I’m only having a rant. But we need to use things that might annoy you. Similar, again, I’m the one doing it but I don’t want to go back to it, but the Cup final, ‘a big pitch, we’ll get destroyed’…right.” 

The chance Doherty refers to is what he believes was a “stonewall” penalty for an apparent pull by Anto Breslin on James Bolger late in the game. St Pat’s manager Stephen Kenny had his own complaints, believing Zach Elbouzedi’s second-half goal was wrongly flagged for offside, and that Pat’s should have had a penalty when Joe Redmond was “wrestled” to the ground in the box.  

Drogheda must navigate the early weeks of the season with significant injuries to key players. 

Elicha Ahui, man of the match in last year’s Cup final, will miss about eight weeks as he needs knee surgery on a meniscus issue, while Douglas James-Taylor has to have another assessment on his injury to determine for how long he will be absent. “It won’t be soon, I can promise you that”, said Doherty of when he may have James-Taylor available again. New signing Paul Doyle is also sidelined with injury. 

Kenny, meanwhile, introduced Mason Melia off the bench for the final 20 minutes: the teenager did not play in any pre-season games as he recovered from a back injury. Melia will remain at Pat’s for the duration of this season before he moves to Spurs next year, and Kenny confirmed that Spurs have put no limits or terms on Pat’s use of Melia this season. 

“No, no, we just have to be careful, you can’t just fire someone straight in when they’ve been out for a few months. He hasn’t played since last season, since September last year. Certainly, he is young and naturally fit so he will get there quicker than most players, but he is just coming back and needs a sustained period of training and he will be terrific for us.”