Derry manager insists 'Bigger picture at play for us'

Derry City vs. Cork City | Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium | Friday, 7:45pm

Tiernan Lynch insists that there is a bigger picture at play at Derry City beyond this season’s title race.

A ninth league defeat of the season has left the Candystripes 11 points behind leaders Shamrock Rovers after a return of just one point from the last three league games. Despite dropping to third place again in recent weeks, City are in prime position to secure European football and have high hopes in the FAI Cup, and while the league hopes are fading, Lynch believes that the recent new signings will put the club on firmer footing going forward.

“The title race is talked about by people like yourselves,” he said. “Our job is the next game and that would be exactly the same whether we were top of the league or third or wherever. You can only focus on the next game because if you start looking too far ahead you end up falling in front of you, and if you look behind, you get a creak in your neck. The big thing for us is that game’s gone. We were very disappointed but we’ve come in to get ready for Cork, and great credit to the players, they have bounced right back in the door. They worked extremely hard and are now ready to get back on that horse on Friday night.”

City have yet to find the consistency to match Rovers step for step at the top of the table, but Lynch feels his players are close to finding the levels which will make them a genuine threat going forward.

“If you look at Sunday’s game and you watch it back, we had two unbelievable opportunities to score in the first half, which probably would have made it a very different game for us,” he said.

“That has probably been something we’ve been hugely disappointed in. It’s the same with the goals that we conceded, because we had started to shore things up there. Against Bohemians, again, I felt we created enough chances to win that game; they only had two shots on target in that game and they scored from one of them. They are things that are disappointing for us as a group, but at the same time, I can’t give the boys any more credit for the work they’re in to put those situations right. We have chopped and changed a little bit with regards personnel, but there’s a bigger picture for us.”

Lynch admits that he was surprised and disappointed with the result at Tallaght on Sunday past, with the timing of Rory Gaffney’s first goal ultimately decisive.

“Sunday was hugely disappointing for us,” he reflected. “We had worked so hard all week and we were actually in a really good place going into the game. We bounced into the game full of confidence and I think the first half actually showed that. Conceding so early in the second half probably rocked us, and that’s disappointing on our part that they allowed that to rock us. Truth be told, we probably never recovered from that and we were disappointed with the outcome.”

Sunday’s defeat was City’s ninth of the campaign, and while disappointed, Lynch is at least pleased that his players take defeat so personally.

“You have to win every game,” he stated. “You won’t, but you have to try and probably the big thing is not accepting defeat. Defeat feels like a post-mortem at this club and I think that’s what it has to be. You can never get used to losing games. It has to be the opposite. Losing games is not something that we should ever get used to; they should be shocks to our system and I think we’ll get there, I really do.

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"This group of players are very honest, they’re very hard-working and I think we’ll get them where they need to go.”