Calm approach works for Collins

Shelbourne coach Eamonn Collins denied an old fashioned half-time rant was responsible for the Dubliners’ amazing second-half recovery against Lille in their UEFA Cup first round, first-leg tie at Lansdowne Road.

Shels were given the run-around by the slick-moving visitors in the first 45 minutes and were lucky to go into the interval only 2-0 down to goals by Mathieu Bodmer and Christophe Landrin.

But after the break the home team rallied and a late double by substitute Glen Fitzpatrick, on earlier for Thomas Morgan, gave Shels some hope for the second leg in France in a fortnight’s time.

Collins had to deliver the interval pep-talk because manager Pat Fenlon was under a UEFA touchline ban for verbally abusing an official in Shels' Champions League qualifier against Deportivo La Coruna in Spain, but he insisted his players responded to calm rather than threat.

“There’s no point going in and throwing tea pots and tea cups, you’ve got to go in and be constructive,” said Collins.

“I didn’t think we did ourselves justice in the first half. We weren’t aggressive enough and we gave the ball away too cheaply.

“If you do that against a team with quality players like Lille have, you will get punished. At half-time we said that we needed to be a bit more positive in everything that we did from our passing to our tackling. These are the things that we tried to change and they are a very receptive bunch of players.

“They’ve been in adversity before and came back and I think they showed great character in the second half.

“Pat has built up a belief that keeps them going and they work so hard at training and are such good professionals.

“When teams win leagues like we did last year and go to places like Deportivo La Coruna and Hajduk and perform well, it shows great spirit.”

Collins insists he is still confident of getting through the tie despite the loss of two away goals.

He said: “We can go anywhere and score. There is a belief amongst our team and regardless of what the score was in the first game, we would always feel we’ve got a chance.

“When we’re on our game then we can match most teams and there’s no reason why we can’t go over there and get a result.”