‘We didn’t finish our chances’ says Newry City boss Darren Mullen after loss away to Welders

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Newry City slumped to defeat in East Belfast on Saturday, losing 4-1 away to Harland and Wolff Welders.

The Championship strugglers were the better side in the first half however, and led 1-0 at the break after a superb chip by Ryan McNickle.

But the second half was a disaster, as they shipped four goals – including a hat trick to Michael McLellan.

Despite that, Newry manager Darren Mullen said that the score-line wasn’t a fair reflection of the game, and he lamented his side’s inability to finish their chances in front of goal.

“It's disappointing; I don't think that it was a 4-1 game, 6-6 might have been a fair enough score-line,” he told the club’s social media channel.

“We started the game really well, and we knew that they were going to play a high line. We trained this week to break that, and we did that on numerous occasions. We should have been 3-0 up after half an hour, and that's the annoying thing.

“When you plan for that and everything was executed bar the most important part of it, scoring goals, it means that the work is undone. We said that 'we're missing too many chances here, it could come back to bite us'.

“We finished the half strongly and it was a great finish by Ryan, but we were frustrated that it was only 1-0.

“Then in the second half, we just didn't give ourselves a chance. We made a stupid mistake with the penalty, there was not much need for it. After that, we didn't really recover. We didn't hold the ball up enough to give ourselves a chance to break out, it kept coming back on the defence.

Mullen was full of praise for the hat trick hero, saying that Newry would have won had McLellan been on his side.

“The difference was Michael McLellan, to be honest,” said Mullen.“If we had Michael McLellan in our team today then we're winning that game. That's no disrespect to Ryan who did his bit, but if you have someone who can finish their chances... we didn't finish our chances, we create so many chances and don't finish them and that is the frustrating thing.”

MATCH STATS

H&W Welders: Mills, Patterson, McCarthy, O’Kane, Kee, McCoubrey, Kearns, McClay (Farren 38), Mullan, McLellan, Jallow (Parkhouse 70).

Unused subs: Walker, Harris, Robinson, Maguire, James.

Newry City: Donnelly, N. Healy, McGivern (Dorans 66), O’Brien, Doran, Moan, B. Healy (Carroll 75), Poynton (O’Sullivan 90+2), McNickle, McEnteggart, Smyth (McParland 90+2).

Unused subs: Mitchell, Harvey, O’Flaherty.

Referee: Stewart Long