Derry City pair praised by boss Declan Devine

Derry City manager Declan Devine gave special praise to goalkeeper Peter Cherrie, after their scoreless draw at Cork City.
Derry City goalkeeper Peter Cherrie kept his second clean-sheet of the season.Derry City goalkeeper Peter Cherrie kept his second clean-sheet of the season.
Derry City goalkeeper Peter Cherrie kept his second clean-sheet of the season.

Devine felt the ex-Rebel keeper, who is becoming a calming influence in the dressing room since his arrival this season, was always in control at Turner’s Cross.

“I’m delighted for Peter coming down here and keeping a clean sheet because he’s been a fantastic person around the club and a calming influence around the team, but they didn’t really create that many chances,” he stated.

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“That’s testimony to everyone in front of Peter. I gave Peter a special mention in the changing room because when you come down here and keep a clean sheet and just be so calm and collected, it’s outstanding.

“All the stuff he had to do, I think he would have been very disappointed with himself if he didn’t do it.”

Another man who Devine gave a special mention to was left-back Ciaran Coll, who was handed a late call-up to replace Patrick McClean after he picked up a quad muscle injury in the warm-up.

The former Finn Harps skipper was outstanding throughout and settled in nicely and linked up well with Michael McCrudden who played in front of him.

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“Ciaran came in with three minutes of the warm up left,” explained Devine.

“We were informed that Patrick was injured. I spoke to the boys over the last few weeks about how big an influence Ciaran has been.

“He hasn’t thrown his dummy out of the pram. He has stayed with the squad all over pre-season. He has been fantastic around the place and he gave a performance that epitomises Ciaran.

“He has played senior football for ten years, he has captained Finn Harps, he has played in games that have been very difficult to get something out of and he’s a credit to himself.”

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Devine isn’t getting carried away with the point, but he feels his squad will get better in the coming weeks.

“Once you take your foot off the gas in this league it actually has a terrible habit of coming back to bite you on the backside, but we’re very grounded. “We knew coming here it was going to be extremely difficult, but I think we’ll get better.

“I think we’ll get better with the ball but this answered a lot of questions for me in terms of our hunger to see out games and keep clean sheets.

“We’ll assess this game and we’ll come back and we’ll look at Bohs but in hindsight this has been a fantastic character building exercise for us.

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“We spent the last 48 hours together as a group and we travel home as a group and when you come to Turner’s Cross and get a draw it makes all the effort that they put into pre-season all worthwhile because it was tough.”