Wakehurst fall to league defeat at hands of students

Wakehurst are already without the services of through injury of goalkeeper Marc Maybin (finger) and key players Ryan Gregg, Stephen Mellon, Paul Muir and Lee McCaughern.

The Ballymena side also lost defender Chris Rodgers, who signed for Larne last week, adding to the departures this month of George Young, Ricky Culbertson and Jason McKay, with no new arrivals coming in.

“The move for Chris happened very quickly, within a matter of hours in fact,” Gregg told Times Sport.

“It’s a good move for him to go up a division and I can’t praise himself enough for how he conducted himself in his time with us.

“Once we get a few of our injured players back, it will help us immensely.

“Ryan Young is available again after exams and he played for the reserves on Saturday.”

After falling behind n the half hour, Wakehurst responded on 55 minutes when Conor Gregg collected a cross from Jason Paul and rounded the keeper ti score.

The decisive winning goal went to Queen’s 10 minutes from time when James Lavery headed home.

“Defensively we were positionally poor in the first half and didn’t track runners, which posed us problems.

“The picture changed in the second half and on the basis of our second half performance, we probably should have done enough to get a draw,” added Gregg, whose side travel to face Amateur League Immaculata in the Intermediate Cup this Saturday (1.30pm).

“I’m expecting a tough game because usually what lower-ranked teams perhaps lack in finesse, they make up for in terms of sheer energy,” the manager added.

Wakehurst: Cairns, Gilmore, Gage, Stevenson, Dickey, Crawford, Laughlin, Lemon, Gregg, Paul, Kirkwood. Subs: Allen, Millar, Armstrong, Ross, Parker