Doc still waiting for that goal

DAVID CUFFLEY

Gary Doherty's long wait for a goal continues - but the City centre-half is sure his run of near misses can't last forever.

Doherty twice came close to getting on the scoresheet in the closing stages of Saturday's 2-1 defeat at Hull.

With the score at 1-1, the Republic of Ireland international's header from a Simon Lappin cross brushed the top of the net. Then, in stoppage time, his close-range shot was deflected wide as the Canaries pressed desperately for an equaliser.

But 27-year-old Doherty, whose last senior goal for City came nearly two years ago in a 2-1 home win over the Tigers, is putting a brave face on his barren run.

He said: “Hopefully it will come soon. It's been a while now. I just want to get one now and then hopefully they'll come like buses.”

Of his injury-time effort, he said: “I don't know what the ref was doing. I just hit it and it came off his shin. It was good defending by them, they got bodies in the way. But I was disappointed not to get a corner.”

Doherty said City were caught cold by Hull's second goal.

He said: “We got back in the game and they killed us with a sucker-punch. They always try to get the second balls and they play off that. That one time we didn't cope with it very well and they scored from it.

“It's disappointing, especially because we got ourselves back in the game. It was a tough game, it was always going to be in that heat and on that sticky pitch. I thought we dug in and had got a point, but it wasn't to be.”

Perhaps the Canaries had committed themselves too much after drawing level, he admitted.

He said: “Maybe it was a bit naive. We had the three strikers on so we were always going to try to get it forward and make something happen but it leaves you one short in midfield.

“Maybe we exposed ourselves a bit too much - that's something we've got to look at.”