My old boss is now my new boss 14 years later
Waterford FC Interim manager Matt Lawlor celebrates with captain Padraig Amond after the game against Bohs at Dalymount Park. Photo: INPHO/Bryan Keane
Football can be very strange sometimes. We had gone seven games without a win in the build up to the Derry City game and now all of a sudden things look very different after back-to-back victories. The win was a brilliant 2-1 battling team performance away to Bohemians Fridays night who were the form team in the league going into the game having won their previous three fixtures.
Bohs were the better side on the night, but we defended very well all game apart from one moment which we conceded from so even with three points on the board there are still some things we can work on.
We scored the opening goal just before half-time, which gave us a real boost going into the interval. We spoke about not giving up anything silly, especially early in the half, to let Bohs back into the game, but that game plan went out the window soon after the restart. They scored four minutes into the second half, and truth being told, almost everyone in the ground bar the Waterford players and staff probably thought that Bohs would go on to get all three points. We showed great character to bounce back from that setback, and we scored what turned out to be the winning goal ten minutes later for a very important victory.
By the time you are reading this we will have played Shelbourne away on the bank holiday Monday and we are hoping that we can make it three wins in a row in the league for ourselves which would make the league table look a lot better in the eyes of the Blues.
That game will mark the last game that Matt Lawlor will be taking charge of us, and Lawls has done a brilliant job in the interim since Keith Long’s departure. I loved working with him last year while he was assistant manager, and equally this time around too, and have a great relationship with him. Lawls ruled himself out of consideration for the job on a full-time basis for personal reasons, but all at the club are very grateful to him for coming in and steering the ship at a very difficult time for the club. You can tell he is going to make a very good manager in the future, and Fleetwood are very lucky to have a person like him around their club so it will be sad to see him go.
Our new manager will be in attendance at the game against Shelbourne on Monday and will take charge of his first game at home at the RSC on Friday night against Galway United. That new manager is my old boss, who signed me for Accrington Stanley fourteen years ago John Coleman. John is an excellent manager who has done a brilliant job at Accrington Stanley in two different spells spanning almost 24 years and just two short of 1100 games.
Importantly, he is a very good person, too. When I signed for Accrington on loan from Pacos de Ferreira, I actually stayed in his house for the first two nights because of a hotel issue, which was very nice of him. Even when he left Accrington, we stayed in contact, which isn’t always the case I this sport. I would have played against all of his teams throughout my time in the UK, and there was never an easy game. His teams always played an attractive and attacking style of football, but equally, they never forgot the basics of the game which is important. His eye for a player was always impressive, and he has found some real gems in non-league or on loan throughout his managerial career, along with getting the best out of players who played for him.
I hope he can bring those qualities across to Waterford with him and take us to the next level, starting with the Galway game on Friday. Galway have been our bogey side for the last few years, but hopefully we can break that hoodoo this week. We had it with Derry City last season, losing all four games and failing to score in any of those games either but this season we changed that narrative by beating them both home and away in the first thirteen games of the season.
