Ciaran Coll hopes opening Derry City goal is first of many

The left-back was delighted to score his first goal for the Candy Stripes, but was frustrated by the team’s overall display at Tallaght Stadium.

“It’s a massive point for us,” he stated.

“We were two down and that was very, very disappointing but we battled back and got a point, yes it might have been three, but we’ll just have to kick-on now.

“Look if you stand off a team and let them play, they will pick things off, especially Shamrock Rovers, they are similar to us, because if someone stands off us we’ll get at teams.

“But when we got that first goal, from then on it was all about regrouping and everyone saying to ourselves ‘lets go and get the second goal and try to push for a third’, which is exactly what we did.

“As I said, it was good to get a point instead of a defeat going into the break.

“It was just a matter of saying to myself ‘I’m getting into the box’. Barry (McNamee) said to me after the game that there wasn’t much power in his cross, so I just sort of had to just get there and thankfully I did.

“I just seen that space in the corner and it was then just a matter of trying to get the ball there, which thankfully I did.

“I’m happy to get off the mark now and hopefully there’s a few more to come from me during the rest of the season.”

The ex-Finn Harps man admits he’s disappointed that Derry don’t have another competitive game now until June 28th, at Cork City.

“We train every day and what you want at the end of the week is a game,” he confirmed.

“We want to try and catch the team above us and keep the momentum going, so whenever you come back in from a break, it’s hard to get going again, but as I said the character in that changing room means we are always ready to go.”

The 27-year-old praised the Brandywell changing room and feels that character and never-say-die attitude is down to all the backroom team.

“You look at our changing room and it’s fantastic. If you look at Jackie (Ciaron Harkin), who came off for Eoghan Stokes and I have to say that Eoghan was incredible when he came on,” he added.

“There’s not one man in our changing room that came off against Shamrock Rovers and said that they weren’t pushing themselves to the limit and it’s a credit to Declan, Marty (McCann), Deerso (Kevin Deery), Paddy (McCourt), Mickey Hegarty, everyone in the back-room staff, to keep us fit.

“Even the injured players are working every day and just proves that our character is unbelievable, everyone is pulling in the same direction.”