4th Place | New Sponsor | Cup dreams begin

You can now buy your very own "Mick Cooke" in Scotch Hall!

Right I’m back from holidays and I had a lovely time, thanks for asking. Actually I tell a lie, I was following the future Mrs Forzadrogs around trying to arrange the upcoming wedding, which can be a bit of a drain, I hope she’s not reading this!

So what has happened over the past week or so, well we drew with UCD away and battering them for the most part and hitting the woodwork a couple of times. I watched the highlights on MNS and we really need to start taking our chances. I mean it’s not like they’re half chances we’re creating, they’re sitters most of them. If we converted most of the great chances we’ve had this season then we’d have won probably all our games by at least 2 or 3 goals. In saying that though, I’m not going to complain about it too much, for now anyway, as if someone had told me that we’d be sitting in fourth place, one point behind the champions after 10 games, then I would have laughed.

Last Friday night we hosted Sligo at home. This for me was going to show how good this squad of players are and also set the bar against probably the best footballing side in the country. Sligo, despite being top, were not exactly firing on all cylinders and so we did have a chance to cause a probable upset, but before the game two of our most influential players, GB and RB, withdrew with flu. This was a massive blow for us as the battle in midfield was going to be crucial as Sligo are extremely strong in that department with the likes of Lynch, Ndo, Cretaro and Ventre. From reading the match reports and supporters comments, it looks like we were well beaten despite having a chance to come back into it at 1-2 when Fabio missed a decent chance, but most commentators I’ve read confirmed that Sligo deserved their victory and with a striker in hot form like Danny North, it wasn’t a major surprise that he hit the back of the net.

It’s not the end of the world to be honest, we went on an 8 game unbeaten run in the league and our only 2 defeats have been to the current champions and to the league leaders. If that continues for the rest of the season then for me this will be a massive success. Coming up on Friday is Bohs in Dalymount. Bohs have been indifferent this season, started really poorly, then once they got their first win then started to play fairly well but went down to Bray last Friday, so it’s hard to predict which team will turn up this Friday. We are better than them though and if we have a fully fit team with GB and RB returning then the wide pitch at Dalyer will suit our attacking style and I can see us coming away from there with at least 2 goals.

So what else has been happening on the Drogs front over the past week? Well the FAI cup draw was made and we got a handy draw against non league side Mayfield of Cork, at home. It’s a great draw as we should win it and it gives Mick the chance to probably rest some players as we’ll have the Craptown away the following week in the league. We’ll have to be on our guard though as we’ve already played against non league opposition this season, Firhouse, and lost, but I can’t see us losing this one. I love the cup, it’s great competition and we all remember 2005 in Lansdowne road and I really hope we get the opportunity to experience that again soon. With this team of players, I’m pretty sure it will happen sooner rather than later. So hopefully those of you who put a few bob on us at 66-1 will be sitting more comfortably, for the time being anyway.

Off the pitch, the club announced a new jersey sponsorship deal with Scotch Hall for the next 2 years. The Scotch Hall logo will replace the horrible yellow Hunky Dorys logo on the jerseys, and it looks quite well on them. I might actually buy a jersey now. A five figure sum has been rumoured to have been agreed, so we’re not talking about anything major but at least it shows that businesses in the town are returning to have faith in the club despite all the trouble in the past. Hunky Dorys are still on board, as I presume United Park will remain HD Park for the time being anyway. I remember when HD first came on board and I think the deal was around €9,000, now how long that was over I’ve no idea but it looks like we’ve bettered that with this new deal. So well done to the club on that front and long may it continue.

So we drop to fourth in the table now after the other results of the weekend. Bray got the 3 points against Bohs at the Carlisle grounds to continue their recent good form. The Langers beat Craptown, just about. McCaffrey will probably not talk to MNS again this week and it’s so laughable up there at the moment that I’ll need at least a week if I was to comment on it. Derry went down at home to Pats, who jumped into second place. Pats are beginning to show their quality in recent weeks and are threatening to be contenders for the title. I’ll reserve judgement for later as they’ve got history of flattering to deceive. The Champions could only get a point at home to UCD. Kenny is really not doing himself any favours there and it’ll be interesting to see what the Rovers fans will do if they’re poor enough start continues.

AND in the final game of the round, Shels beat Mons at Tolka, 2-1. Nothing strange about that you say, however the FAI are investigating some irregular betting patterns on the game surrounding a penalty. Both managers were spoken to before the game and also their players. It’ll be interesting to see if anything comes from this as if players were trying to fix certain events in the game then it’s pretty poor form by them. I hate people like that, these guys are supposed to be footballers, so if you can’t be bothered to try and win fair a square then leave the club and don’t ruin it for the rest of your teammates!

Anyway that’s it from me today, enjoy the bank holiday and well done to everyone who ran the Boyne 10K run the other day. Go on and treat yourself to a nice beer and burger now! MNS will be on tonight as well, just thought I’d mention that.

Later.