Bray Wanderers headed back home on Saturday evening pleased with their days work. Following three straight defeats and losing arguably their best defender to Reading, they pulled a performance out of nowhere and managed to leave The Showgrounds with a point in the bag following their 1-1 draw.
Both sides will feel they could have claimed all three points. Bray's Dane Massey tweeted saying they were pleased with the point but felt they could have claimed all three. It was a very evenly matched game, I was certainly not expecting this to be a close fought contest.
Bray had an early penalty appeal when Kieran 'Marty' Waters was brought down as he attempted to power through the Sligo defence. Replays showed that it was, in fact a penalty but upon first viewing it looked like Joseph Ndo got a touch on the ball so it's understandable why the referee might not have been convinced. Jason Byrne also missed a chance that you would have put your mortgage on him scoring. Of all the players on the pitch he is the one man you would expect to score it. Unfortunately for the Wanderers he hit it straight down the middle at the legs of the 'keeper. Bray eventually took the lead through Byrne. Making them the first side to lead against Sligo at The Showgrounds since Shamrock Rovers in March 2010. Byrne pounced on an error from the Rovers' defence to slot in off the far post.
As I said already the game was relatively evenly balanced but for me, Sligo just about edged it. Danny North seemed to forget about the offside rule, and, if he timed his runs a bit better Bray would have been put to the word. Raffaelle Cretaro cut in from the left to unleash a superb effort towards the far top corner which cannoned off the upright. Gavin Peers got free very easily from two consecutive corners almost finding the net on both occasions. John Mulroy brilliantly cleared an attempt off the line when it look destined to find the top corner of the net. Mark Quigley and Pascal Millien came on and had an immediate impact. Quigley caused Bray many problems and it didn't take long for Sligo to find the net through Alan Keane. After that I felt there would only be one winner - Sligo. Thankfully The Seagulls held out to take a well earned point home with them.
To conclude I would say a draw was a fair result with neither team really doing enough to win it, Sligo will be disappointed not to have beaten Bray in a game they really should have been winning. Bray will be delighted with the draw and will look to build on it in their next game on Friday against Shelbourne.
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