Confidence evident says boss

GARY Hamilton was evidently a happy man after his side’s victory over Donegal Celtic on Saturday afternoon.

Hamilton was delighted with his side’s impressive first half display but equally pleased with their second half resilience as Donegal Celtic pushed forward.

After our performance against Glentoran, the boys brought a lot of confidence into Saturday’s game.

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You could see that in the first 20 minutes. It was a great start for us and we deservedly went in leading at half-time. Sometimes that can go against you because from DC’s point of view, they’ve got nothing to lose and they can take a few gambles in the second half.

That’s the way it went and they got a goal back but thankfully we made it 3-1 straight away.

“It was a bit nervy again at the end because they had nothing to lose and they were throwing men forward. Peter McCann was almost playing as a centre forward at the end and he had started as a right back.

After the break, we could see that Ciaran Doherty was a big miss for us. He’s a big player and him going off took away from our performance.

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We saw it out though. Ciaran Martyn has come in and made a massive difference. People don’t always see what he does because he’s not the type of player to go on a run, beating other players.

He does make box-to-box runs all game though and as an opposition player, it’s tiring to track that type of player. He creates a lot of space for us and he was exceptional on Saturday.

I thought everyone was very good and all of the player would have been on at least a seven out of ten.

We’ve played a different formation in the past two games but I don’t think formations make that big a difference. It’s just about getting the best 11 players on the pitch.

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Guy Bates has been outstanding at holding the ball up for us and that’s what enables us to play the 4-5-1 or 4-3-3, depending on what way you look at it. If we don’t have a front man who can do that, there’s no point in playing like that.

In the past two games, Bates has been exceptional, as have the rest of the lads. The most important thing is playing together as a team and getting more points on the board.

It was a good win on Saturday so hopefully we can kick on and pick up another result against Linfield.

If people look at the bigger picture rather than just the results, they’ll see we’re a good team and won’t be in the position that we were in last season.

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I’m very confident of that. We’ve still got players like Brendan Shannon, Eddie McCallion, Niall Henderson and Mark Farren to come into the side.

Those are four players who would compete for a place in any team in the league.

The signs for the future are good. All that we can do is keep plugging away and try and get points on the board. Hopefully from January on, we won’t pick up as many injuries.