Moyola Park boss Marty Smith is backing his promoted players to adapt and adjust to life in the second tier following a 2-0 loss he felt failed to reflect the contest.

Goals after the break by Craig Taylor and Henry Cromack settled the Championship points in Annagh United’s favour but Smith signalled a key moment away from the scoresheet as most significant on the day as Moyola continue to learn lessons at the higher level.

Four fixtures into the campaign and Moyola have experienced all extremes as Saturday marked a second defeat alongside one win and draw.

“I'm not sure that we'd done enough to win the game but I didn't feel there was a lot in it,” said the Moyola manager. “Annagh are difficult to play against here, they have a certain way of playing...they're very direct, they put a lot of stuff into the box and if that works for them then by all means they should do it.

placeholder image — Moyola Park manager Marty Smith after Saturday's loss to Annagh United. (Photo by Iconic Media Group)

"But I felt we coped with it pretty well.”

“There's a big moment in the game – 1-0 down, we get a penalty with 10 or 15 minutes left and that's a massive moment. Unfortunately, ‘Parky’ (David Parkhouse) has missed it, but he's been fantastic for us over the last 12 months, he's scored almost 50 goals.

"So we're not going to be too down on him about that, but obviously when we're pressing on trying to get the equaliser and we have a few minutes to go, they get the second goal and that sort of finishes the game.

"So we have to just take it, learn from it, recover and go again.

“I'm not sure how the lad (Lee Upton) who handled the ball for the penalty wasn't sent off...but they tell us that decisions go swings and roundabouts. But you can stand here complaining about it all day...we were beat and we have to move on.”

Smith stands confident the tools sit in place for progress.

“We're coping okay and, if I can get the level of effort and commitment that I've got off the players so far, I think we'll be okay,” he said. “As a group we all did well, we all competed, we knew we'd have to win our first and second balls coming to a place like this and I thought we did that.

"I just felt at times we lacked a bit of quality, we maybe didn't work the goalkeeper enough across the 90 minutes probably...it is what it is and we'll have to just patch ourselves up and move on.

"We've been unlucky with injuries early on...but we've built a squad that's all capable of stepping in and playing.

"I'm just hoping that this wee bad injury spell for us comes and goes pretty quickly and we get everybody back on the pitch as soon as we can.

"I'm not too disappointed, obviously we'd like more points on the board...I think if we score the penalty today we'd probably get at least a point.

"We're only four games into a 40-game season, so we've a lot of football to play.”

With the transfer window entering the closing stages, Smith discussed plans before the summer slot shuts down.

“As long as the window stays open and if a player becomes available, or that we can get a player that we feel will improve our squad, then we'll move,” said Smith. “But if the window was to shut tonight and we had to go on to the rest of the season with a squad of players we have then I'd be happy with that as well.”

ANNAGH UNITED: Martin Marron, Kris Calvert, Jude Cargill, Eoin Teggart, Craig Taylor, Jordan Gibson, Aaron Rogers, Lee Upton, James Carroll, Liam Burns, Ryan McNickle. Subs: Callum Linton, Ben Callan, Oliver Crowe, Sam Sproule, Luke Logan, Ross Redman, Henry Cromack.

MOYOLA PARK: Andrew Findlay, Cead McGrath, David Parkhouse, Kenny Kane, Lee McLaughlin, Adam Gray, Niall Fielding, Callum McCay, Bobby Deane, Jake Wallace, Joshua Carson. Subs: Ray Kelly, Robert McLean, Jack Berry, Patrick McLaughlin, Jonathan Doyle, Luca Doherty, Joseph McCready.