Derry City's Cameron McJannet wants more late drama at Bohemians

Last April, in what was Ruaidhrí Higgins’ second game in charge, the centre-back netted a second half brace to cancel out Georgie Kelly’s first half penalty and secure a hard fought win at Dalymount Park.

While McJannet was thrilled to fire home a stoppage time winner, he admits he was a little disappointed there wasn’t any travelling support in the ground to witness his dramatic winner.

“Yeah, that was nice but I just wish there were fans in the stadium that night. Hopefully now that we have fans back in the stadium, I’ll be able to do it again,” he smiled.

“We have a win down there already this season with a late goal and there have been a few late goals when we’ve played Bohs so hopefully it’s more of the same with more late goals for us this Friday.

“Bohs are a good team but, as a team, we like playing down there at Dalymount and since I have been here we have got good results in the past. Hopefully we can keep that run going.”

The defender, who only a few months ago signed a two year contract extension with the Candy Stripes, believes Derry have the talent and drive to go on another winning run after last week’s victory over UCD.

At the start of the year, Derry won seven of their opening nine games and McJannet is confident they can get back to that again.

“We obviously went on a run at the beginning of the season and we went on quite a few runs last season,” he explained, “Last season whenever we lost a game we didn’t lose for quite a while after it, so we know we can put runs together.

“We just need to stay tight as a group and go out there and do it, I know that sounds cliché, but that’s what it is really.”

The 25-year-old, who has worked well alongside both Eoin Toal and Shane McEleney this year, says the Brandywell men have plenty to play for and the changing room is excited about the second half of the season.

“We have a lot to look forward to in the second half of the season, from the league campaign to the Europe Conference League starting soon and then the FAI Cup, so we have to have a real pop at the second half of the season,” he confirmed,

“We need to give it our best and see where it takes us. Most teams have little dips and that’s all it was when we went on a run of not having a win but not every performance was bad, it was just results didn’t go our way. We’re learning from that and we’ll come out the other side better off from it.

“I think we have learned a few things about ourselves as a team, so we’ll put that all into practise for the rest of the season.”

The Milton Keynes native was pleased that Derry secured the three points at UCD last week and even more happy that they kept their first clean-sheet in seven games.

“We needed the win by any means necessary so to get 1-0 up and protect the lead was all that we could have hoped for and, to be honest, that’s all we were after as we wanted to get the three points no matter how they came,” he explained.

“It was big to get a clean-sheet and I think as a team we did well and defended as a team, it wasn’t just the defenders, I think the strikers and midfielders also did the hard work and important stuff to make sure that we kept the clean-sheet.

“Obviously it’s nice as a defender to keep a clean-sheet as it feels like you have done your job,” he concluded.