The UCD manager, Collie O’Neill, has backed his side to find ‘an extra level’ in their quest to stay in the Premier Division.
UCD overcame Finn Harps – their fellow newly-promoted outfit a- t Belfield on Friday night to move off the bottom and above Harps in the table.
Two goals from Richie O’Farrell and another by Timmy Molloy fired UCD to a comfortable win.
“There is an extra level we can go to,” O’Neill insisted.
“We aren’t looking to finish second bottom and say we had a good year. There is another gear there. The ability and skill to go a little bit higher is there.”
The win was UCD’s first of the season and arrived a week after they lost narrowly to Sligo Rovers at the Showgrounds.
Against Harps, it took UCD an hour to break the deadlock on a night when they dominated large swathes of the game.
O’Neill said: “I thought it was going to be déjà vu after what happened last week.
“I was thinking here we go again. That has happened so many times, but we have been hammering to them all season to just keep going.
“The performances are good. We want that to be consistent through all of our games this season.
“It was nice, one, to get a clean sheet and, two, for some goals to go in at the other end. We just want to keep playing and keep plugging away. I told them it would come if we stuck to our principals and stuck to what we’re good at.
“We don’t look too much at the results. It’s about the performance. All I ask is that they have the courage to go and play. They have played in every game this week.”
