Ruaidhri Higgins praises players for responding well to 'over the top' criticism

Ruaidhri Higgins believes his players have reacted well to what he feels has been unfair criticism in recent weeks.

Higgins watched his team dominate Dundalk on the way to a 3-0 victory, the team’s fifth win in six games. The three points keeps the Candystripes two points behind Shamrock Rovers in second place in the Premier Division, and Higgins had nothing but praise for his players.

“It’s an excellent performance from start to finish, bar maybe a 10-minute period before half time where they got a bit of control,” he said. “They have been on a brilliant run Dundalk and credit to them, but tonight we put on a comprehensive display and deserved our win.

“We had to learn from the previous two Monday nights at the Brandywell where we’ve been flat. We made four changes tonight and I thought we looked really fresh and we had fresh legs in the front four which was really important to us. I thought it was a really good display.”

It was a return to winning ways at the Brandywell after three defeats in the last four games at home, and Higgins believes his players have responded well to criticism from that poor run.

“Our players have come under a lot of criticism from people in recent times and rightly so to a certain extent, but I thought a lot of it was over the top, particularly that weekend here where we lost two in four days,” he stated. “We weren’t good and I accept that, but given what this team has done over the last year or so, I thought a lot of criticism was over the top, and there’s only one way to respond to that, and that’s by winning football matches, keeping clean sheets and fighting for each other and that’s what we’ve done.

“We’ve had a bit of adversity on and off the pitch already this season. There have been difficult times and injuries and all sorts but this group don’t surprise me with their fight and their hunger and I’m delighted for them. But we have to go and finish the week off now on Friday and pick up three points, and if we can do that, it will have been a brilliant week for us.”