Hungry Coggins plots brighter London future

LONDON’S season may have come to a disappointing conclusion, but as far as Paul Coggins is concerned, this is only the beginning.

When the Roscommon native was offered the London job late last year, he insisted on a three-year term, with the first year to be spent developing a squad.

Not only did Coggins manage that, he also steered the Exiles to their first championship win in 34 years and first ever on home soil. Not a bad start for one of the most difficult jobs in inter-county football.

“I’ve told lads they can be very proud of what they’ve achieved,” said Coggins. “We’ve attained some of the goals we set. Obviously we wanted to get into the next round but that’s for another time. We’re already looking forward to next year. The improvements we’ve made since the start of the league has been great, and we’re going to keep going.

“They’re a great bunch of lads and hopefully the squad will keep together. We talked afterwards and they’re still hungry. We’re just sorry this year’s journey ended so early.”

A poor first-half performance, where Waterford dominated around the middle and punished the error-strewn hosts, and the dismissals of Paul Geraghty and Ciarán McCallion, put paid to London’s hopes of progressing.

“I was very disappointed with the first sending off. I thought it was very soft,” said Coggins. “Paul is down on himself but I think he’s being harsh. There was a bit of pressure put on the linesman but he was already on a yellow and that was the problem. I think they said it was for a hit in the ribs, but that’s part of football. It’s a physical game and Paul’s a big man. He’s not soft and I thought that was harsh. The second one was a lack of discipline and Ciarán knows it. Again, maybe we should have seen things a bit earlier on the line; we could have made a change a bit earlier.

“Paul was a huge loss but the boys dug in. We didn’t die, we didn’t go away. We didn’t concede a second goal; that’s one goal (against London) in five games. I think that’s huge. We’re all disappointed London were beaten. We didn’t get hammered though. We had great support, a great atmosphere. I’m sorry that we couldn’t play better in the first half, but hopefully we’ll put that right next year in the league.”