Soccer

Heaney heads home to lift some of the gloom at Bray Wanderers

Win over Rovers comes after six weeks of no wages for players at side bottom of the table

Sean Heaney scored Bray’s winner in the 74th minute at the Carlisle Grounds
Sean Heaney scored Bray’s winner in the 74th minute at the Carlisle Grounds
Sun Jul 08 2018 - 21:24

Bray Wanderers 2 Sligo Rovers 1

Central defender Sean Heaney was bottom-of-the-table Bray Wanderers’ unlikely match winner to lift some of the gloom hanging over the Carlisle Grounds.

The Bray players hadn’t trained all week due to what’s now six weeks without wages. Three players have already left the club while captain Gary McCabe didn’t feature yesterday ahead of his expected departure.

Club chairman Gerry Mulvey will meet the players again tomorrow when they hope to be “brought up to date”. “It’s been tough for everybody. Everybody has been a victim of it,” said manager Martin Russell of the situation.

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“You have to try to make the best of it and we’ll see what happens this week. “The chairman came in and spoke honestly with the group the other day and said he’d like to have everything up to date by [tomorrow].”

Lacklustre

Despite their woes Bray started positively and were deservedly ahead on 15 minutes. Daniel Kelly’s ball over the top found the run of Ger Pender who, despite looking offside, shot past Mitchell Beeney as the assistant referee’s flag stayed down. A lacklustre Sligo should have been level two minutes before the break, but veteran Raff Cretaro failed to capitalise on a mistake by goalkeeper Evan Moran.

Cretaro was instrumental in Sligo’s equaliser on 54 minutes, though, dinking a perfect cross in from the left for ex-Bray winger Adam Wixted to head home. Moran parried away a drive from Wixted before Bray got their winner on 74 minutes. The marking was poor from Sligo as Heaney met Rhys Gorman’s free kick from the left to find the net with a firm header. It’s a worrying defeat for Sligo who remain just two points ahead of Limerick in the relegation play-off place, though with a game in hand.

Bray Wanderers: Moran; Harding, Kenna, Heaney, Lynch (Mamaliga, h-t); Walsh, Gorman, O'Conor, D. Kelly; Ellis (O'Gorman, 70), Pender (J. Kelly, 59). Sligo Rovers: Beeney; Sharkey, McFadden, Mahon, Donelon; McCabe, Cawley; McAleer (Twardek, 59), Cretaro (Kerrigan, 77), Wixted; Drennan (Morrison, 65). Referee: Tomas Connolly (Dublin).