KEARNEY PRAISES HIS SIDE’S CHARACTER AS THEY BOUNCE BACK

It was a big game for the Bannsiders as they look to maintain there top six status and it would have been easy for them to lick their would following the mauling on Tuesday night.

But instead they produced an assured display against the Whites effectively having the points wrapped up by the break thanks to goals from Stephen Lowry, Ruairi Harkin and Kyle McVey.

Lowry and McVey took advantage of slack goalkeeping to head home while Harkin curled home a delightful effort from the edge of the box after some great build up.

“First and foremost the result is important and we can’t lose sight of that,” said Kearney after the game.

“But more than anything I’ve always said I’ll put my name to what we put out on the pitch and I stand here today with more happiness as the performance looked more like what we are trying to achieve here.

“Credit must go to the players because they are the ones who have to go through the humiliation of Tuesday night and they had to step out there to day and deal with it again.

“It was a big response from them.

“We got off to a good start today and scored some good goals. The second and third goals were very good in my opinion.

“The hunger and the work rate that was missing on Tuesday night was there for all to see. For Ruairi’s goal there was three or four 50-50 tackles in the build up and we competed for everyone, whereas on Tuesday night we just didn’t put ourselves in that position.

“There was a slight concern when they pulled a goal back given what happened earlier in the week, but that’s human nature. We did get a wee bit edgy after the break, but we still created chances and were perhaps unlucky not to score a fourth.

“But as I said when you’re carrying that baggage from Tuesday night you don’t expect it to be plain sailing.

“There’s a lot of positives to take out of the game. It’s very simple, it’s all about hard work and if good players work hard generally they will get the results.”

Distillery gave themselves a glimmer of hope as Owain Beggs pulled a goal back 30 seconds into the second half. But the comeback never materialised, instead Tim McCann was left to reflect on the cost of more individual errors.

“Unfortunately individual errors are costing us every week,” he said.

“Two of the goals today were free headers with the keeper coming out and missing the ball twice, you can’t legislate for things like that.

“I was encouraged with the second half though and maybe on another day we might have sneaked a draw as we had a couple of good chances.

“I thought we would have kicked on from the great start we had to the second half when Beggs scored.

“The young lads who came on today including new signing Michael Moore did well.

“I’ll be looking to add a couple more to the squad and hopefully if we can carry that second half performance into Tuesday night game against Portadown we‘ll get something out of it.”