Fit-again McCullagh aiming to make his Mark all over again

Mark McCullagh felt that the conditions in Saturday's defeat at Portadown were as tough as he had faced in his career. Picture: Press Eye.

The defender had been a virtually ever-present in United’s back four before picking up an injury just before Christmas and he had been on the sidelines until a suspension to Johnny Taylor opened up a way back into the side.

“It’s a very competitive squad now and the likes of Jim Ervin and Darren Boyce have added to that so if you’re out of the team, it’s more difficult to get back in,” said the Randalstown man

“I tore my hamstring in the League Cup semi-final against Crusaders.

“After the first game of the season I think I had played virtually every game so the injury was unfortunate.

“I had to take a couple of weeks off but I’m fit again now and hopefully I can keep my place.

“Johnny Taylor has been brilliant this season and Davy Munster is still playing virtually every week so I have to bide my time and hopefully do enough to stay in the team.”

McCullagh felt United were unfortunate not to take anything from Saturday’s weather-affected match at Portadown.

“It was just about the worst conditions I’ve ever played in.

“I couldn’t believe it went ahead but all of us were eager to get the game played - the last thing we would have wanted was to go all the way to Portadown and have it called off.

“They were very difficult conditions but it wasn’t dangerous and everyone was happy to get the game played.

“Unfortunately it didn’t go our way in the end.

“It was a good strike to win the game but I hadn’t felt that Portadown had looked like scoring, to be honest.

“I felt Gary Twigg handled the ball in the build-up to bring it under control but to be fair, Sean Mackle has produced a bit of quality to put it in the top corner.”

Despite the fact that United have now suffered back-to-back league defeats, McCullagh remains optimistic about the Sky Blues’ hopes of reaching the top six in the Danske Bank Premiership.

“Three or four months ago, if someone had offered us the position we’re now in we would have snapped their hand off.

“We were in a bad place, a couple of points off bottom at one stage, but we put together a hell of a run and now we have to get back to that sort of form.

“Glenavon have a couple of games in hand over us but we’ll just look after ourselves and try to achieve our objective of top six,” added Mark.