{"id":581078,"date":"2026-08-03T01:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T01:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/581078\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T01:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T01:48:15","slug":"coughlans-waterford-merely-controlling-the-controllables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/581078\/","title":{"rendered":"Coughlan’s Waterford merely controlling the controllables"},"content":{"rendered":"

Create your own reality. That might best describe the approach that Waterford boss Graham Coughlan is taking as he continues to attempt to steer his side clear of a relegation battle – albeit a relegation battle that they’re not really in, as far as the manager is concerned.<\/p>\n

The D\u00e9ise grabbed another three valuable points with a 1-0 home win over struggling Shelbourne<\/a> this afternoon as Tom Lonergan’s latest goal pulled ninth-placed Waterford within two points of Drogheda, who drew with champions Shamrock Rovers on Friday evening.<\/p>\n

Not that Coughlan – who took over from Jon Daly less than three months ago with the team drift at the bottom after a horrendous start to the season – is paying attention to the Louth club, or any club not named Waterford FC for that matter.<\/p>\n

“If I was looking at the table and if I was looking at the opponents, I’d be telling you lies. I don’t. I genuinely don’t,” Coughlan told RT\u00c9 Sport’s Shane Dawson after his side’s latest win.<\/p>\n

“I’m more concerned of our team, our players, our individuals, our performance levels.<\/p>\n

“I don’t get sucked into that, and I don’t get embroiled in that because if we’re not doing our jobs, if we’re not winning games, if we’re not keeping clean sheets, it’s on us.<\/p>\n

“History will tell you, probably from a managerial career, I always just work off 80% us, 20% the opposition.<\/p>\n

\"Waterford
\nTom Lonergan puts Waterford ahead against Shels<\/p>\n

“I try keep the lads away from the league table. I try and keep the lads away from the opponents or whoever’s in that table. We’ve got a mini league going on, which we’re top of and I think we’re probably up there top of the league in terms of form over the last eight or 10 games.<\/p>\n

“So they’re the the league tables that we work off. They’re what we look at. I can’t control what’s happened before. I can’t control anything with Drogheda, with Sligo, with Galway.<\/p>\n

“So I’ve got to concentrate and stay focused on what we’re doing, what we’re about, and how we win football matches.”<\/p>\n

Coughlan did allow himself some satisfaction with another excellent home disaply from the south-east club, who have been making the RSC something of aa fortress durign the summer months.<\/p>\n

“We’re pleased with it. Can’t can’t hide the fact. Clean sheet as well. I thought we were excellent,” Coughlan enthused.<\/p>\n

“We were really good. It should’ve been a little bit more comfortable than it was. But again, I suppose that’s the area of the table we’re in. That’s where the lads are, we were really good, to be fair.<\/p>\n

\"Prem02Aug26\"
\nThe Premier Division table as it stands<\/p>\n

“I kept waiting on [Shelbourne] to change shape. I kept waiting on them to chuck one or two different scenarios at us and the longer the game went on, I was quite surprised.<\/p>\n

“I thought they would’ve went two up top a lot quicker chasing that goal. We gave them a lifeline with penalty that we missed. They then had a five, 10-minute period.<\/p>\n

“As you’d expect, Shelbourne were very good with the ball. They moved us around. They asked a couple of questions of us, but we answered the questions and I was really pleased with our performance today.<\/p>\n

“Really pleased. And fair play to Shelbourne, a really good team, European place, and they won the league a couple of seasons back.<\/p>\n

“So they have got really good players, real quality as well. That’s a big win for us. It’s a big win. Hopefully the lads made a statement today that we can compete.<\/p>\n

“We can compete with the bigger and the better teams.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Create your own reality. That might best describe the approach that Waterford boss Graham Coughlan is taking as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-581078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}