Ards boss Warren Feeney blasts players after Newry City defeat

Warren Feeney readily admitted that his Ards side’s performance against Newry City on Friday night was far from good enough after they were comprehensively beaten and slipped to the bottom of the Danske Bank Premiership table.
By The Newsroom
Published 7th Apr 2019, 23:01 BST
Updated 8th Apr 2019, 01:47 BST

The former Northern Ireland international felt that the visitors weren’t at it from the word go as City leapfrogged them courtesy of goals from Stephen Hughes, Mark McCabe and Tiarnan Rushe at The Showgrounds.

“I’m disappointed to be honest because from the first whistle we put ourselves on the back foot. We kick the ball out of play and then concede a stupid free-kick inside two minutes and it puts us right on the back foot and we didn’t get ourselves into it,” the ex-Linfield boss admitted.

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“It wasn’t us tonight, but we can’t dwell on it. There’ still a long way to go and, as I said before the game, there’s going to be a lot of twists and turns still. Fair play to Newry, they made it hard for us and they went about their jobs right. We’ve just got to put it to bed and concentrate on next week.

“I’ve been in football long enough to know there’s still a long way to go.

“As much as we were on a good little run and playing well, the gap was only two points. We’ve got to take it game by game and hopefully put this right.”

Feeney knows his side must improve as they host Glentoran and their new management team of Mick McDermott and Paul Millar this Saturday in their bid to stay up.

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“You’ve got a massive club coming to our place with a new management team.. It’ll be a good game for us, but the boys have got to react better than they did tonight.”

A pleased Darren Mullen felt his side finally got their rewards for putting some decent performances in 2019, without getting the results to show for it.

“We worked really hard tonight. Our football was excellent, our movement, our passing, everything was super. It’s not a shock that we played so well because we’ve done that in patches. But it’s really pleasing that we did it for a full game,” he said.

Newry City AFC: Coleman, King, M Hughes, Noonan, Boyle, McCann, Montgomery (Moody 89), S Hughes, Carville, McCabe (Pender 89), Lavery (Rushe 39)

Subs not used: Maguire, Walker, Teggart, Durnin

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Ards: Johnston, McAleenan (McClellan 74), McClean, Taylor, Byers, J Kelly (Cherry H-T), D McAllister, Tommons, E McAllister, M Kelly (Shearer H-T), Henderson

Subs not used: Davidson, Kerr, McCawl, McNulty

Referee: Keith Kennedy

Related topics:GlentoranPremiershipDanske BankNorthern Ireland