Bray Wanderers left Turners Cross on Friday evening following a 2-1 defeat to the country’s form team Cork City. But Bray Boss Harry Kenny wasn’t too despondent after the game.
A Seani Maguire penalty early in the game had the hosts in front, and it stayed that way until three minutes from time when John Dunleavey doubled the lead. An injury time strike from Derek Foran ended up just being a consolation.
We spoke to Harry about the penalty decision, and asked him if it was the deciding factor in the game. He said, “I thought the penalty was very soft. You see players holding off each other all the time, mind you we got a similar decision a couple of weeks ago in Dundalk. It wasn’t a game changer as it was very early in the game and Cork were dominating at that stage.”
He also re-iterated his belief that it’s a great start to the season for his side, “We’re delighted with the start to the season, joint second is a very good start but there is still a lot of football to be played.”
He mentioned all the players they brought in at the start of the year saying, “We signed some exciting attacking players in Gary Mccabe, Aaron Greene, Anto Flood and Jamie Aherne from Shamrock Rovers U-19s. They all have contributed to our impressive goal tally, it also gives us plenty of different options going forward.”
“We have a strong squad this season which is being tested at the moment, as we have our two regular full backs absent through injury, Hughie Douglas and Kevin Lynch. Anto Flood is only back, and Conor Kenna has served a suspension recently, so it’s important to have players that are ready to come into the team.”
As for a realistic title challenge “We’re not thinking too far ahead as football can change very quickly, who would have thought that Cork would be 12 points clear after the first series of games? At Bray we’re just pleased to be at the top half of the table after 11 games.”
When asked how good winger Dylan Connolly is, Harry said “Dylan Connolly has improved on last season he’s more tactically aware and has a better end product. It was very important that we kept him at Bray and I think he will only get better.”