Willie O’Connor cheers on UCD as unbeaten run continues – The Home of Irish Football

On By Vaseline

Andrew Dempsey reports from the UCD Bowl

UCD boss Willie O’Connor insists his young side must maintain their performance levels to maintain their unbeaten streak.

The Students have risen to second in the table and are just two points behind leaders Cork City.

Three successive wins over Wexford, Treaty United and Longford Town – on Friday night – have kept them in touch with City and they are now unbeaten in nine games.

“It was a great run,” O’Connor said when he spoke extratime.com on fridaynight.

“But the challenge for the boys is: can they maintain that consistency?

“We saw in the first quarter of the games that if we fall away, we don’t win games.”

Prior to Friday’s win at home against Longford Town, the Students had claimed just five points from five home league games.

“We did better away from home,” O’Connor added. “In the first quarter of the games our home form was not good enough and we tried to put that right.

“But I can’t blame the pitch, because our pitch was one of the better ones at the start of the season. We went to worse fields and put in better performances.

“It’s probably just the way the games went.”

And the students will have another chance to rack up more points at home on Monday evening when they host Cobh Ramblers in the Belfield Bowl.

They already beat the Rams this season, but needed two late goals to win 2-1.

“It’s going to be a very tough game,” O’Connor said. “It was already one of the toughest matches we played during the first round.

“The last Monday game we had (against Kerry), we weren’t there.

“We know what awaits us and we know that we have to do everything we can to achieve results.”