Ruaidhri Higgins - 'Patrick McEleney is the most honest professional I've ever worked with'
Derry City manager dismisses criticism of his captain
Ruaidhri Higgins has dismissed the public criticism of his captain Patrick McEleney as ‘absolute nonsense’.
RTE Analyst and former Shelbourne player Conan Byrne did not hold back in his criticism of the Derry City midfielder, who won a late penalty for his team in the last minute of Friday night’s game with Shamrock Rovers at the Brandywell.
Pat Hoban scored from the spot to earn what could be a very valuable point for the Candystripes in the race for the league title. But the furore over the penalty incident continued long after the final whistle.
“It’s an absolute disgrace,” Byrne fumed. “A player of his calibre going down like that in the box for his team to gain an advantage is absolutely disgraceful. My blood is boiling as a former player, as a competitor, as a sportsperson, to see somebody go down like that in the box is just not on. We don’t VAR, but we have great sportsmanship in this league, we have great atmospheres, we have great buzz, and that’s why people come to these games, and to see something like this happen – yeah, it’s a poor decision from Damian McGraith.
“It’s not in the good of the game. We’re all League of Ireland fans here, we love the way there’s no VAR here, we love the way there’s packed out stadiums, we love good sportsmanship, but we didn’t get it tonight.”
That criticism was dismissed by City boss Higgins, who defended his captain while also insisting his team should have been awarded a penalty earlier in the game for a handball by Rovers defender Lee Grace.
“Did he make as much noise about the penalty that we never got, the absolute stonewall penalty?, “ he asked. “He probably didn't because he lives in Dublin and he has to face his friends more regularly than he has to face people up here. We're used to that absolute nonsense.
“Patrick McEleney is the most honest professional I've ever worked with and obviously Conan doesn't know him too well. He used his experience, of course he did. We got the penalty that we deserved because there were two previous incidents that we should have got one and we didn’t.
On the Grace handball incident, Higgins was adamant that his team should have had a penalty earlier in the game.
“There was no explanation,” he said. “We had a brilliant view of it from here. It was a stonewall penalty. You see those penalties being given absolutely every week and it’s a penalty. There’s no question about it, it’s a penalty, but we didn’t get it unfortunately. But we kept going, we kept believing and we got a point.”
In Derry City’s hands
With league leaders Shelbourne losing at Galway United, making it a run of just one win in eight games for Damien Duff’s team, the gap between the top two is now just three points with six games remaining. Once again, the destination of the title is in Derry City’s hands ahead of a trip to Drogheda United this weekend.
“Like every club in the league we have six extremely difficult fixtures and we go away to Drogheda next which is a tough task and we'll be as professional as we can be and prepare as best we can to go to Drogheda and win the game,” Higgins added.
“We have a wee bit of backbone and contrary to reports we do have a bit of backbone. We deserved at least a point from the game and I'm really proud of the commitment that the players put into it. The point is really important. We’ve shown grit and we’re going to need that over the next six games to try and do something special.”
Higgins, often reluctant to talk about the title, now admits that his team are right in the mix with so few games left.
“We’ve a really good group of players, we’ve a lot of experienced players in the group and staff who have been around these situations,” he explained.
“Over the last couple of years we haven’t really been in it. We’ve flirted with it, but I think it’s the first time that we’ve really been in it and it’s to be embraced. Winning’s hard or everybody would be doing it and we have to dig deep and roll our sleeves up because we’re going to need to keep showing the fight that we’ve shown over the last wee while.
“Our supporters have waited an awful long time for a league title – it’s 27 years or whatever, and they are kicking every ball. There’s joy, there’s anxiety, there’s all those different emotions and that’s what football’s about. It’s an emotional game and you’ve got to embrace it.”