Boss happy with share of the spoils

INSTITUTE manager John Gregg was happy that his side secured a point against Ballymena United, on Saturday.

The Coleraine man also admitted, whenever Paddy McLaughlin was sent-off in the 73rd minute, his team may have struggled to hold on for a share of the spoils.

"I'll take a point because we lost a man, who I have to admit was rightfully sent-off and with 25 minutes to go whenever Paddy (McLaughlin) was sent off you were thinking here we go again and it's going to be another one of those days, but we battled hard and I think deserved a point," he said.

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"To be honest defensively at times at centre-half we ducked challenges when all we needed to do was clear our lines, sometimes those silly mistakes cost us and I told Paddy that because I felt he was at sixes and sevens the 10 or 15 minutes before he was sent-off.

"But after that I felt the boys dug in and didn't give anything up. Ballymena obviously came at us because they had an extra man, but I even think whenever we went up the other end we looked as though we could score.

"However in saying all that I think before Paddy was sent off we were well in the game, young Joe had a shot which flew just wide and he had another shot, which was blocked and then Shaun Holmes had a chance and I was thinking to myself, take some confidence out of those chances and push on, but then we had the sending off, which I have to admit was a sending off.

"I thought he was good in the first half, but I felt the referee wasn't great second half but the lad got the sending off 100 per cent as he did with the two penalties."

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The draw also meant 'Stute moved another point clear of bottom club Lisburn Distillery and because of that Gregg was very grateful; however he's slightly worried that his centre-back David Ogilby, whose brace of penalties secured the draw, is now up and amongst the club's leading goalscorer.

"As I have already said I'm happy with the point, because it's an extra point which Lisburn Distillery didn't get," he added.

"We scored two penalties and that tells its own story that we are scoring goals from penalties and that OG is one of our top scorer's."

The Drumahoe club boss also declared that he and the club are working extremely hard to get players out on the pitch, for a lot less money than other clubs are paying their players.

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"People have been talking about budgets and players left our club to cut the budget, but Joe McCready gave me a lot," he said.

"Now he's a lad who was playing Sunday Morning football in Derry and is now on 30 a week on a pay as you play contract, as is Paul Lowry and a few others in my squad, Tony Shields was signed this week on a pittance, so that shows the type of players which I have to find and then get a lot out of them.

"I felt Joe was lively, Declan Divin worked his socks off and Tony Shields who hasn't played for 12 months tried to play in the middle of field, he was caught a few times but you can't fault him for that.

"But it shows how much we get from the squad, because they battled for 90 minutes."