Athy's Feely saves the day

Athy’s Rory Feely described, as “surreal”, his experience at playing in goal for Barrow in their 1-1 draw at home to Sky Bet League Two rivals, Swindon Town on Saturday.

The Barrow defender was called upon to replace netminder, Paul Farman who was issued a red card after he handled the ball outside his box 42 minutes into proceedings.

With Barrow not having included a recognised substitute goalkeeper among their six reserves for this particular fixture, it meant that manager Stephen Clemence had to turn to his regular right back to take up position between the posts.

And, while he may have been far from accustomed to the duties of a Number One, Feely acquitted himself very impressively, recording several fine saves before conceding an agonising 98th-minute equaliser by Danny Butterworth.

Indeed, the Barrow defender was able to draw on his experience of playing Gaelic football throughout his teenage years for Athy and Kildare, when he received the unexpected call-up from the bench.

“I’ve never officially played in goal, and the manager [Clemence] even said after the game that he just took a risk” Feely told The Kildare Nationalist.

“We’re short of a player on the bench with having no academy, so we only have six rather than seven on the bench like the rest of the league.

“Usually, where you have six outfielders and one goalkeeper, we have five and one, and this was the only week where the manager decided to take a risk and choose six outfielders because he felt he could have more of an impact.

“And, of course, the one week he does that, our goalkeeper gets sent off, and he turns around looking at me saying ‘well it’s happened, I guess it’s got to be you now.’ “I just had to find the goalkeeper coaches gloves and the double XL goalkeeper’s jersey and I went in.

“It was a bit surreal. It’s a different view of the pitch than what I’m used to for sure and I have a bit more sympathy for goalkeepers after what happened there.

“But it’s all about trying to stay focused because the ball’s on the far side of the pitch for the majority of the game. I was just trying to throw myself at the ball any way I could.

“I was a bit disappointed, because I felt I could have saved that last one. It was just a bit of a wobbly shot that caught me completely off guard and went in off my arm.

“It was heartbreaking at the end, but it’s not a loss. That’s the main thing I’ve been trying to keep in my head. It was a draw and we were down to 10 men for the majority of the game” he stressed.

Barrow have made an encouraging start to the season, with ten points from their opening five games that has seen them go third in the League Two table, just two points off leaders Doncaster.

Feely, who had appeared to be on his way out of Barrow at the end of last season before the club opted to do a U-turn on that decision when Clemence took over as manager, has enjoyed a bright start to this campaign.

He made the starting line up in big wins over Crewe and Port Vale and will be hoping for more game time in his regular right back role when the team travels to Grimsby next Saturday.

“It is early days still and no one is making any assumptions from how it’s gone so far, but overall everyone is quite happy” said Feely.

“I’ve had a good start to the year. I started against Crewe and Port Vale and I’ve really enjoyed it and I know the lads in the squad have really enjoyed it as well.

“Stephen Clemence is a really good guy and he’s got a really good playing career behind him, so there’s a wealth of knowledge there that we can delve into.

“It’s a really good environment that he has there and we feel like we’ve been playing some really good football so far this year.

“We have Grimsby away this weekend. They’ve had a bit of an up-and-down start, but they’ve had some really good performances, so we’ll have to be at the top of our game and play to the standards that we expect of ourselves, and hopefully that will be enough to get the win” he said.

Certainly, Feely will appreciate hopefully lining out in his more familiar full back role this weekend, despite having impressed much of the Barrow faithful with his goalkeeping performance last weekend.

“If I’d had a pair of O’Neill’s gloves on my hands, I probably would have been even more comfortable, but I had to go with the goalkeeper ones” laughed Feely.

“I would obviously do it again for him [Clemence], but I’m not hoping for it to ever happen again, to be honest. It was a bit of a daunting experience. It’s stressful in there, I can tell you that” he added.