Glenavon defeat ‘won’t define’ United’s season, says skipper

Allan Jenkins insists that Saturday’s crushing opening day defeat by Glenavon “won’t define” Ballymena United’s season.
Allan Jenkins believes Ballymena United's players can bounce back from Saturday's 6-3 defeat by Glenavon. Picture: Press Eye.Allan Jenkins believes Ballymena United's players can bounce back from Saturday's 6-3 defeat by Glenavon. Picture: Press Eye.
Allan Jenkins believes Ballymena United's players can bounce back from Saturday's 6-3 defeat by Glenavon. Picture: Press Eye.

The skipper says that Ballymena’s players will improve after another heavy defeat, reminiscent of a number of similar hammerings last season.

“We had high hopes coming into Saturday, everyone was looking fit and well after pre-season and then we go out and produce that - you just can’t put your finger on it,” said Jenkins.

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“Basic defending just killed us, then we started to dominate the game and all of a sudden, we’re 4-0 down.

“We got it back to 4-2 and you start to think ‘possibly’ and then we gave away a horrendous goal.

Glenavon played to their strengths and I think they will take points off teams. They play it direct to two very good footballers up front and we struggled to deal with them.

“For the first goal, the ball has travelled 80 yards and that set the tone and for the second goal, I called the header from the long throw-in and Bates nipped in front of me and won the header so that was my responsibility.

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“The third goal kind of summed up how the game went - the guy has scuffed a shot and it has fallen to Winkie Murphy four yards out. I would have fancied myself from four yards out!

“We lost three goals in eight minutes and that’s the worrying thing - the capitulation that seems to happen when we concede a goal.

“We thought we had got that out of our system but we were proved wrong which is really disappointing.

“We’re never going to do anything in this league if we can’t defend better.

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“We asked the supporters to stick by us and then we produce a performance like that so, rightly, we’ll get the criticism on forums and social media and we have no case to say ‘you’re wrong’.

“We can only hope they stick by us and turn up to support us at Seaview.

“A year to the day we stood here after beating Linfield and we had aspirations of doing this and doing that.

“We have 37 more games to rectify Saturday’s defeat - it won’t define our season. It’s not a great start by any means but it’s not the end of the world.

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“The players were despondent but we’re realistic as well. I don’t think we’ll be as bad defensively again.

Football is high one week, low the next - I’ve certainly experienced that in my time at Ballymena - but we will be doing our utmost to do better. It’s only us who can get ourselves out of it,” added Jenkins.