​‘We gave the fans something to cheer about’ says Newry City boss Darren Mullen

​The result was a much-needed improvement after disappointing displays in their last two games – a 4-0 loss away to Annagh United and a 1-0 loss at home to bottom-placed side Newington.

“It's a mixture of emotions,” he told the club’s social media channel, when reflecting on the result.

“We're probably disappointed that we're not coming away with three points to be honest, considering the chances that we had at the end.

“But overall, I suppose that it's probably a fair result. We know that this is a difficult place to come. We obviously had a couple of suspensions and three or four lads out injured, so we knew that it was going to be difficult.

“We set our gameplan up and I thought we did that really well. In the first half we contained them. In the second half we conceded... Look, the lad [Brandon Diau] is about seven foot so by the law of averages, he is going to win some headers.

“Unfortunately, he got a clean header after a good delivery, and then it was just about how we reacted to it.

“We spoke during the week about digging in and fighting a wee bit more, and I thought that we did that really well.

“It was a case of hitting them on the break and we got a good finish. It was probably a bit frustrating that we weren't better on the counter because we did have numerous chances.

“But overall, it is a good point for us because we needed a reaction after last week (a 1-0 loss against Newington). It wasn't good enough, it was poor – both the Annagh game (4-0 loss) and Newington last week.

“We needed a reaction, we needed to give the fans something to cheer about and thankfully we did that.

“The players dug in. Not everyone is playing wonderful football; the manager always wants their team to play all the football. That didn't always happen today, but we fought a lot harder than we did in the last two games.”

Welders up next

Newry City will be hoping that they can carry their good performance into this weekend’s trip to Harland and Wolff Welders.

However, Mullen guarded against complacency – as they have developed a bad habit in recent months of taking one step forward and two steps back.

They followed up a 1-0 away win over Ards with back-to-back losses against Institute and Ballinamallard United in December; they followed up an impressive Irish Cup showing away to Premiership side Carrick Rangers with a 3-1 defeat at Ballyclare Comrades; and most recently, they followed up a 2-1 win over league leaders Bangor with the aforementioned poor displays against Annagh United and Newington.

“Institute is probably one of the toughest places to come and get a result,” said Mullen.

“They're a good football side, it's a difficult place to come and we haven't had a massive amount of joy over the years.

“We need to build on this; it can't the same case as the Bangor game (a good performance) followed by not performing for the next two. We have to carry this into the Welders game.

“We've gained a valuable point today, we need to start picking up more points and there is no reason why we can't go and do that next week. “We'll have no fear. We are where we are and we need to fight our way out of it. Thankfully, today was a good start.”