Anthony Ralston sounded absolutely gutted in his post match interview with Celtic TV after a poor performance from the Hoops saw local A-League side Sydney FC win the match to the delight of their small group of fans who were greatly outnumbered by the huge Celtic support who travelled near and far to support Celtic in Ange’s homecoming tour that sadly got off to a poor start.
“Disappointed first and foremost, it doesn’t matter what competition you play in, whether it’s a friendly or whether it’s a cup final, you don’t want to lose,” Ralston said.
“Our intention was to come here and play no different to what we do in the league, so if we lost in the league or anywhere else we would be disappointed. But, the only positive you can really take was it was good to get 90 in, and that’s about it.
“I just felt as a collective we weren’t on it and there’s no excuse for that. We let them play through the middle too easy and probably in hindsight didn’t take our chances, so I’m sure we’ll analyse it ourselves and see exactly where it went wrong.
“We hold high standards here, and, like I say – friendly, cup final – it doesn’t matter, we have the same intention going into each game and the intent was to come here and put on a show for, not only the fans that live here, they get up to watch us at three in the morning whenever we’ve got league games back home, but there’s traveling fans here.
”So it’s disappointing from that aspect, but it was nice to see the turnout here, and to be able to perform in front of the fans that don’t always get to see us.
“It’s very rarely they get to see us, so it was nice to see them and for them to see us in person, and that’s another wee positive to take from it on a disappointing night.”
On the incredible backing that the team received in Sydney from the Australia based fans as well as those who travelled from all over the world, Ralston reckons that their backing was simply incredible.
“It’s special. To be able to see the fans over here, the fanbase that we have globally. You obviously see the fanbase back home in Glasgow, which is the best in the world, then you come away here and you just see how strong the fanbase is around the world.
“It’s special, but we carry the responsibility playing for this team and friendlies or league games, they support us and pay to come to see us, so it’s important that we keep giving back to them.”
Here is Anthony Ralston speaking to Celtic TV after the 2-1 defeat in the opening match of the Sydney Cup.
Here are the highlights from the game against Sydney FC…
Here’s Ange Postecoglou’s post match media conference, which is well worth a watch…
