Scotland Head Coach Drew McNeil praised his players, the Bught Park pitch and the referee following the 15-14 Marine Harvest Shinty / Hurling international defeat to Ireland at the Bught Park, Inverness on Saturday 29 October 2011.
When asked for his thoughts on Saturday’s game, The Scotland boss said, “We wanted a decent surface for the game and Mike and his staff at the Bught should be congratulated on that because it was better last Saturday than it was for the Camanachd Cup Final. We also needed the rules to be applied and I thought referee Davie Mitchell had a top match. As for the players, the guys really delivered the game plan that they were asked to in the first half. In the second half, we kept the Irish at arm’s length until they scored the second goal. It was a really cracking game which was full of passion, bravery, effort, energy and it never over stepped the physical element from both teams. There were no histrionics and no cheating.
McNeil was adamant at full-time that Ireland’s winning goal was not offside and he hasn’t changed his mind after seeing it replayed on television. “No. these things need to be blatant or obvious,” he said. “That goal alone didn’t cost us the series. We should’ve scored a second goal and the reason we didn’t was down to a combination of good goal keeping from Paul Dermody and a little lack of composure in front of goals. At 1-8 v 0-0, the Irish goalie pulled off a triple save and that was really a key moment.”
Ireland led 2-1 after the first series under the game’s scoring system. However Scotland trailed 15-14 in the game and 5-1 in the series during the closing 3 minutes of the match. The game on a knife-edge though as one Scottish goal at that stage would have completely turned things around and left the Scot’s 4-3 in front because they would have two points for the win and an additional point for their second goal. The Scot’s had some frees during this closing period but they went for the goal rather than putting the ball over the bar and for this, McNeil has no regrets. “We could’ve taken the two points at that time and won the home but we would have lost the series so we went for goal. It’s better to have lived one day as a lion than a lifetime as a lamb!”