Comrades lose on the road at Dundela

The tie at Wilgar Park was the former Cliftonville and Larne player’s first game in charge of the Comrades.

Eamonn Fyfe opened the scoring for the home side on eight minutes before David Fearon made it 2-0 on 15 minutes.

The Comrades improved after the break, but Rhys Annett ensured all three points would be staying in east Belfast when he found the net inside the final 10 minutes to make it 3-0.

Speaking after the match to the Dixon Park outfit’s media officer, Zoe Tisdale, Small said: “I think we started poorly and we sort of played into their hands in terms of their strengths. They go very route one and they exposed some holes in our defence and they probably could have been two or three up before they got their first goal. We needed to get to half time to try and improve, both defensively and try and get ourselves back into the game.

“There’s a couple of young centre backs in there and right away I would take some responsibility with the coaching staff of saying ‘could we maybe have done better?’

“I’ve only had a week with them, so I couldn’t just throw a back three at them without working on it really. Maybe we need a bit of time to bed in a formation that suits them and get them buying into it, because there’s two young lads being centre back and I think when we changed the shape at half time, I think they were delighted because it suited them better and get a real experienced player beside them.”

Commenting on the club’s players who were missing through injury, the former Carrick Rangers manager added: “I don’t want to come on and hide behind that. We’d enough players of quality that we could have done better in the game. The first half would probably be the biggest regret today. We should have started better and done better.

“For 20 minutes in the second half I thought we might have got back into the game, but the third goal obviously killed it off.

“I think at 2-0, if we’d got one, we could possibly have gone on to get an equaliser. They were better on the day. They created more chances and they do what they do really well. They’re strong and direct and they have pace in their team. They deserved their victory.

“I just wish it had been closer in the first hald and we didn’t gift them the incentive to go on and win the game.

“I’m looking forward to getting in and getting more work done in training with the players and hopefully we can improve on some of the things we didn’t do today.”

The result keeps the south Antrim side ninth in the league standings, seven points clear of Knockbreda (10th) and eleventh-placed Institute.

Ballyclare welcome top of the table Newry City to Dixon Park on Saturday (3pm) in the final fixture before the split.

Commenting ahead of the clash, Small explained: “A very difficult game with a team who are pushing at the top end of the table and rightly so, they’re a very good team.

“We’ll look at Newry and work on the system and formation and look at the things that might expose their weaknesses and the things that we could do better defensively.”

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