Duo happy with win

Thankfully for Kee and the coaching staff that’s exactly what the Waterside men did and they did enough to secure their third win in a row.

“Banbridge were second from bottom at the start of play, but we know that its a very tough league, and no game away from home is going to be easy.

“But I thought we acquitted ourselves very well, apart from maybe the first twenty minutes of the match. But to be fair to us we were fairly in control of the match and we could have scored a few more goals, but we were just a little flat in front of goal.

“There’s a better resistance about the team at the minute, and long may that continue. We’ve started the second set of fixtures now and that was the second time we’ve played Banbridge.”

Joint team manager Paul Carlyle also knew it was going to be tough at Crystal Park and he was too thrilled that Mark Kelly’s fortunate goal took the points.

“They proved difficult to break down once again because they get so many bodies behind the ball and it’s a narrow pitch so it can be a difficult place to go to, but we were in control the whole match and defended pretty well and it’s another clean sheet so I was happy with that,” admitted Carlyle.

“Mark Kelly beat the offside trap and rounded the keeper but he mis-kicked his shot and their full-back came running across to clear it and I’m not sure what he did, he seemed to fall over the ball and it went in. He let it go under his foot but you don’t care how they go in. We should have scored a lot more, we dominated the match and they hadn’t too much to offer.

Carlyle also felt that Neil Harkin’s red card in the second half was harsh and he admitted ’Stute were maybe fortunate not to concede a penalty.

“They might have had a penalty shout when the ball hit our defender’s arm but I don’t think it was intentional and the sending off of Neil Harkin was extremely harsh in my opinion. The referee seemed to be the only person in the ground to have seen it.

“At that stage we were comfortable even at 1-0 and then the panic sets in and they started launching long balls but they never really created anything of note.”

As for Kee he also believes that the squad know how important every game from now until the end of the season really is crucial, if they harbour any hopes of promotion.

“I’ve said to the players now that we have to approach every game like a cup final, because we’ll be looking to finish in the top four of the table.

“To do that we have to keep our level of consistency and to do that have to do the basic things right and train and prepare properly, and to be fair to the players, they have been doing that.

“We have a break now until next week, when we play in the final, so we’ll train as normal for that, and then we have a game against Limavady United on New Year’s Day, so we need to go out and give a good account of ourselves. Were doing alright so far this season and there haven’t been any draws, so were capable of winning games.”