Mark Surgenor insists Carrick Rangers 'should be very excited' by Stephen Baxter appointment
Mark Surgenor insists everybody associated with Carrick Rangers “should be very excited” at the appointment of new manager Stephen Baxter and admits he’s looking forward to working with the Irish League legend.
Following Stuart King’s departure last week, Surgenor and Curtis Allen were placed in interim charge for their weekend 2-0 Premiership success against Cliftonville and Tuesday’s Co Antrim Shield quarter-final defeat to Glentoran.
It was announced on Monday that Baxter, who won four Irish Cup crowns and three league titles across 19 years at Seaview where he managed nearly 1,000 matches, will be King’s permanent successor with his first game set for this weekend when Coleraine visit the Loughview Leisure Arena.
Experienced duo Surgenor and Allen have each racked up hundreds of Irish League appearances and played against their new boss on many occasions, but are now excited by the prospect of being on the same team.
"You’re not going to employ anybody with more experience in the Irish League,” Surgenor told the club’s media channel. “He made reference to where our club wants to go and wants to build and he has been there and done it at Crusaders.
"I think everyone should be very excited at what he’s going to bring to our club and everyone can’t wait to get working with him and get going. He has a clear vision of where he wants Carrick to be and he’ll get the backing of the players to do that.”
Allen added: “Stephen has a wealth of experience and is a big name within the game. He only has a couple of days to stamp his authority and he’ll have his ideas of what he wants to do.
"Saturday (against Coleraine) is a massive game for us, a winnable game, and we might set up similarly to how we have done in the last two weeks because it’s a positive thing for us.
"We have to take confidence from the last two games. Where we were maybe six or seven weeks ago, I don’t think we had those two performances in us so we have to use that as a positive and prepare and go into the game fully confident we can get something from it.”
Jay Donnelly’s first-half strike combined with a late Jordan Jenkins goal ensured Declan Devine’s Glens followed up Friday’s Big Two triumph over Linfield in fine fashion as last year’s finalists progressed into the semis.
Reflecting on Carrick’s performance, Allen said: “We’re disappointed to lose the game. The game plan we had was similar to Saturday...we started well in the game, had a couple of half-chances.
"We’re disappointed with the two goals we conceded but we stayed in the game. As it got into the second-half and they started to get a bit edgy, the second goal killed it, but we’d a lovely chance when we broke away and maybe tonight weren’t as clinical in the final-third as we were on Saturday.
"That was probably the tale of the tie that they were more clinical. We’re proud of the boys – it was a big shift tonight against a full-time team after a big shift on Saturday. We couldn’t have asked for any more.”