REPUBLIC OF IRELAND midfielder Connor Ronan made his MLS debut for Colorado Rapids in a heavy 4-0 defeat to Seattle Sounders on Sunday.
Playmaker Ronan is a firm favourite of Stephen Kenny’s, having been an integral part of his Irish U21s squad. He has been at the fringes of Kenny’s senior squad, occasionally called up though yet to make his debut. His chances of doing were hamstrung by a lack of regular minutes at Wolves, having previously impressed on loan at St Mirren of Scotland.
Ronan has now moved to the US with Colorado Rapids, and played all 90 minutes of their convincing opening-day defeat to Sounders the reigning Concacaf Champions League champions.
Cristian Roldán opened the scoring int he 25th minute, with USA international Jordan Morris adding a second just before half time. Morris got another goal in the second half, after Brazilian Héber had added a third.
“I think it’s obviously not the best way to start the season. I thought the first 10, 15 minutes were kind of predictable of any first game of the season: a little bit hectic, quite often back and forth”, said Ronan after the game.
“It was a game of second balls and then the first goal kind of deflates us a little bit. And then I thought we had a period after that where we looked quite comfortable. We had spells on the ball, we got in behind them a few times and then the second goal just before halftime kills us a little bit and just deflections. It’s bad timing to concede a goal and then from the second half, I just thought they created too many chances. We need to be better. It’s not the worst possible time to have a result like this, I suppose. First game of the season, we can look to learn from that, have a look back at obviously the mistakes that we made in the week and look to rectify that next weekend.
“I want to have the ball and I want to get on it as much as possible, but again, this is a new club and I have to almost earn the respect and the trust of my teammates a little bit”, continued Ronan when asked about his own performance.
“Obviously, I’ve only had two or three preseason games where I played 45, 60 minutes and then tonight was my first 90 minutes, and you know, I think it just takes time with new signings for maybe players to learn what each other’s strengths are and then I think you’ll see throughout the season, as we’ve kind of showed glimpses of in preseason, maybe not so much tonight, that once we start to gel and get to know each other’s best way of playing and each other’s strengths that the positives will start to come. But yeah, like I said, I just like to like to get on the ball and hopefully I can just earn that trust of my teammates as the games go by.”
Regular football with Colorado will put Ronan in the picture for the Irish squad, with next month’s Euro 2024 qualifier with France an obvious target.
