TIERNAN LYNCH has admitted he would have been happy had the power issue at Tolka Park not been solved.
But the Derry City boss insisted he was not panicking after his side were well beaten by champions Shelbourne on the opening night.
The Candystripes were 3-1 down at half-time when the lights went out and – had referee Rob Harvey decided to call it off – it would have been replayed from the start at 0-0.
Lynch said: “If you’d given me a 0-0 at half-time, I’d obviously have taken that. I’m not going to lie but our message was one goal was going to get us back into the game and that’s what we tried to do. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be.
“If you’re in the Shelbourne changing room and winning 3-1 you’re going to do everything you can to get the lights put back on.”
And that is what happened, much to the relief of his Shels counterpart Damien Duff, who admitted that he would have been prepared to take matters into his own hands.
Duff said: “I know there are certain rules and it had to be an ESB technician, I am a big believer in asking for forgiveness rather than permission so, here, if it had gone on any longer I’d probably have went over myself.
“I wouldn’t have had a clue what I was doing but I’d have tried something.
“Certain people within the stadium were trying to get the game called off, sharpish. Come on, common sense needed to prevail, and it did.
“The league dealt with it brilliantly, by taking the 45 minutes, to call it off after 20 minutes of the lights being off would have been absolutely ridiculous. So we stayed calm in the chaos, and common sense came to the fore.
“We gave our half-time team talk not knowing if the lights were still on or off, they were obviously off, energy and emotion are obviously going to dip in the changing room, but you can still stay focused, little things, lads starting to turn on their phones and taking their eye off the ball in the game, where they are at., I had to nip that in the bud.
“We dealt with it brilliantly, we came out for the second half, it’s the first and maybe last time it will happen in their career, and we saw out the game.”
They did more than that in the sense that Mipo Odubeko squandered three chances within 20 minutes of the restart.
But they were already 3-1 up, thanks to a double from his strike partner Sean Boyd, one of them from the penalty spot, and one from Evan Caffrey.
And Duff beamed: “I liked the real edge that we had, something that I questioned of them, have they lost their edge and their hunger, what are they prepared to do to go again.
“I have questioned them privately, and in public, that’s what I do and I am very proud of them as I saw a hunger and an edge, but it’s one game, there is a bloody long way to go.”
And if he was not getting carried away, neither was Lynch despite the way in which his centre-half pairing of Sam Todd and Mark Connolly really struggled against the Shels front two.
Lynch – who confirmed he would like to bring in another centre-half – said: “I’m hugely disappointed in the goals that we conceded and the manner in which we conceded them. It’s something we very much need to look at and put right.
“But there was also lots of good things that we done. We knew this was always going to be a process, it wasn’t going to be a flick of the switch, that you put all of these players together and all of a sudden you’re a top, top team.
“We’re one game in, that’s where we are. I don’t think we’ll know now whether you’re going to win the game, lose the game, be bottom, or top.
“Shelboune have been building this now for three or four years. That was our first competitive game together. We were under no illusions that this was going to be a process.
“I’d love to be able to tell you that in two weeks we’ll be the dog’s balls but you just don’t know. The thing we’re doing every day I’m really pleased with and I think you saw signs of how good this team can be and will be.”
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