Loughgall's Ben Murdock turning to 'good memories' for modern motivation in 'difficult' run
Loughgall captain Ben Murdock wants his team-mates to draw motivation from past progress – with one date in December 2023 especially significant heading into this weekend.
One highlight from last season’s much-celebrated campaign that left Loughgall with senior status against the odds as a club operating off the smallest resources of any Premiership club was the 3-1 away win at Coleraine.
A return to The Showgrounds today offers an opportunity to relive the memories as inspiration following five points from seven games to date in the current programme.
"It's always been a place we enjoy playing at - the pitch suits us and Coleraine have a similar style of play to us where they want to play football,” said Murdock. "We've had good memories there and even in the defeats we've had they've been close matches.
"So we go there with belief.
"That was the word last time we won up there 3-1...we were there to get three points and it's all about belief and we have to have that mentality.
"The toughest thing when you're in a rut and bad run of games like we are is to get out of it and everyone wants to be in a winning team.
"It's easy to be in a winning team.
"But we have to think about the positives and experiences we've had at Coleraine and see if we can try and replicate that again on Saturday.
"Last season we set the standards so high for ourselves and a lot of teams realised the quality we had at Loughgall and we obviously got some big results last season.
"The second season in the Premiership is always going to be more difficult and you can see from the results in the first handful of games that it's not what we'd have hoped for.
"And it has been difficult, challenging and, as a group, we're all taking responsibility.
"I think the luck is just against us at the minute too.
"It has been a difficult start to the season and we know we have to start picking up points as soon as possible."
"Even touching on last night (2-0 loss to Glentoran) and the month of September...maybe outside of Glenavon (2-2 draw) we weren't expected to get a whole lot and everybody has us written off,” he said. "You're playing the big top-six teams, full-time teams and it's a chance for us to get things right from a performance perspective, take the positives where we can and we still go into every game expecting to win.
"You don't go into any game trying to keep the score down, that's not our mentality or approach.
"These next two games (Coleraine and Larne) are an opportunity to showcase what we can do.
"The pitch at Coleraine will suit us and Inver Park is a difficult place to go on Tuesday night...but who knows?
"We're off a defeat last night (Tuesday) but there were positives to take from it.
"So, hopefully, that confidence rolls into Saturday and Tuesday.
"September has been an awful and very challenging month so far.
"But that's part and parcel of being in the big league...you have to play these teams.
"We're not getting too down in the dumps.
"It has been a difficult start to the season but it's early and I do still think we can turn this around.”