Mathews pleased with Longford start

Shelboure and Longford Town played out a scoreless draw at Tolka Park on Friday night. Town had a penalty late in the first half but David O’Sullivan’s spot kick was saved by Dean Delaney in the Shelbourne goal.

However, Longford Town boss Alan Mathews was still pleased with his side’s performance.

“Well we missed a penalty so obviously we’d be a bit disappointed with that but overall I thought our play was quite good,” he said, speaking to extratime.ie's Deniese O'Flaherty .

“Shelbourne are very hard to break down, very compact. Once we opened the game up a little bit we carved out a couple of chances, but you’ll take a point on the road and we kept a clean sheet.”

The Dubliner was critical of some of referee Andrew Mullally’s decisions, with Noel Haverty and Don Cowan being struck down with injuries early in the game.

“We got two bad injuries early on to Noel and to Don so we had to re-jig things around.

“It was late challenges on the two of them and they weren’t addressed and that seemed to set a bit of a template for the game. I was a bit disappointed with that,” he said.

The manager dismissed any notions of a ‘soft’ penalty for his side and he’s optimistic about Longford Town’s campaign going forward.

“It was a penalty, I don’t care if it was ‘soft enough’ I didn’t really see much of it from where we were but he gave it.

“That was an opportunity that we missed but the players worked really hard, it was the first game and everybody’s up for the start of the season and as the season goes on we’ll get better in all aspects on the pitch.

Longford Town’s First Division campaign continues next Saturday when they face Cobh Ramblers at the City Calling Stadium in Longford.