Aaron Barry is disappointed but not dispirited by Sunday’s opening day stalemate against Treaty United.
The Seagulls captain knows improvements are needed but he knows his side are capable of those improvements so he won’t be hitting any panic buttons soon.
Although a clean sheet would usually put a smile on any defender’s face, the lack of a goal at the other end was the major cause for concern for the Arklow man as it meant two points dropped for a side featuring six debutants.
“It’s a disappointing start. I think they’ve only been training for three or four weeks and we’ve been at it for over six weeks. We’d a really good pre-season and we were playing against – with all due respect – better opposition than Treaty and we did really well in pre-season but it didn’t carry over. We were very secure, they didn’t look like scoring – they just had a long throw (as a threat) but it wasn’t good enough obviously and especially when they went down to 10 men; I think we were probably even worse. We were missing our three strikers so it’s just bad timing with that one but still, there’s no excuses, we have to be winning that and especially when they go down to 10 men.
“Continuity will come over a few games. The back four only played maybe a half of football together in pre-season but there’s enough quality there and there was enough lads that were here last year so it’s inexcusable to be not winning. It’s not a great start but it’s a long season. We’d a terrible start last season – not that this is much better in the context of things – but it’s a long season and it’s a long ol’ road so we won’t dwell on it too much. We know we have to get better.”
A good place to start would be Tolka Park on Friday. Barry knows that they’ve assembled a formidable squad for the second tier but it doesn’t faze him in the slightest.
“They probably strengthened from the team that got relegated. They’ve a lot of new faces too and they would probably be up there amongst people’s favourites but it’ll take them a while to get their continuity as well.
“To be honest, the way our pre-season went – it doesn’t really matter who we play. I’m confident that we can beat anyone. We just need to improve and not dwell on this result too much.”