Carl Winchester says Liam Boyce will bounce back from red card shame

​CARL Winchester says every Derry City player must take accountability for Friday's 3-1 loss to Drogheda and has backed teammate Liam Boyce to bounce back from his red card shame.

​Former Hearts striker Boyce experienced football's highs and lows inside two crazy second half minutes which saw him score his first Derry City goal before being shown a red card for a second bookable offence.

That sending off changed the course of the game as Drogheda made Derry pay the ultimate price when Conor Keeley scored twice in the space of three minutes to turn it on its head.

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Boyce apologised to his teammates in the dressing room afterwards for the rash decision to bring down Keeley on the halfway line despite having at least three covering defenders.

Derry City midfielder Carl Winchester applies the pressure on Drogheda's Shane Farrell.placeholder image
Derry City midfielder Carl Winchester applies the pressure on Drogheda's Shane Farrell.

Tiernan Lynch insisted the team 'wins and loses together' afterwards and Winchester agreed there should be no finger-pointing.

However, the ex-Shrewsbury Town skipper knows there can be no excuses for not seeing out the final 30 minutes with 10 men.

"I thought we played well for 60 minutes but it's a 90 minute game," he said. "The sending off happened but we have enough experience in there and should deal with their threat.

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"Three balls into the box and three goals. We went 1-0 up and were thinking 'let's go for the kill' and kick on now but the sending off happened and it's disappointing the way it ended.

"No one in that stadium would have predicted the outcome of that game when we went 1-0 up - no-one! We have enough experience. There's enough lads in there that have played enough games to be able to deal with that."

His fellow Belfast native Boyce will sit out Friday's trip to Galway for the offence but Winchester reckons he's got the personality to come back stronger.

"He's been brilliant and works his socks off. He puts in a great shift. He deserved that goal. His hold up play and everything is brilliant. We should help him out and see the game out.

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"He'll be disappointed and he came in and apologised but even with 10 men there's enough lads there to help him out. He scored us a goal and got sent off but we should dig in and see the game out because we were cruising. ‘Boycie’ is a big character and he'll bounce back from that no doubt. We all need to take accountability and move on."

Boyce's dismissal was Derry's fourth red card in nine games this season.

Representatives from the FAI Referee's Committee travelled to Owenbeg last week for a meeting with Derry players and officials and Winchester claims his controversial red card against St Pat's was among the topics raised during the workshop.

While he doesn't refute Boyce's sending off against Drogheda, he does hold the view that Derry City get a raw deal when it comes to the big calls.

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"I don't know what it is, if it's something against Derry City, I honestly don't know. I think they're giving out yellow cards too easily and things aren't going our way.

"We had the referee in and even for my one he said they got it wrong. Yet we appealed the decision and I still didn't get it in my favour. At the end of the day we can't sit here and blame referees. We should deal with that better.

"We should've just dug in. It happened and we can't do anything about it but there's enough experience in that team to deal with it and we just didn't.

"We'll be alright. We need to kick on. We'll move on to Galway and put that behind us. We'll analyse it during the week but let's move on to Galway."

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