Newry City manager Barry Gray: We didn't repay our supporters good faith with performance in Irish Cup defeat to Newington

Brandon Doyle’s first goal since joining on loan from Crusaders last month put the hosts ahead, but it was another January recruit that would have the final say as Ruaidhri Donnelly netted a brace to help Paul Hamilton’s men secure a dream quarter-final clash with reigning Premiership champions Larne.

Newry’s woes continued, now having lost eight of their last nine matches across competitions, while they’ve still only won one two home games since November 2022 – both of which came against teams outside the top-flight in Rathfriland Rangers and Ballinamallard United.

Their attention will now turn solely to Premiership survival where a six-point gap has opened up to 11th-placed Ballymena United, who they’ll host on Friday evening.

"The team performance was nowhere near the level we'd expect even at this early stage...we were miles off it,” Gray reflected on the club’s media channel. “We're disappointed to go out of the Irish Cup and to deliver a performance like that in front of a home crowd that has been very supportive of us since we came in and the players all season long.

"We haven't repaid any of their good faith based on that performance. When I spoke to the supporters when I came in they spoke about performances - they didn't mention wins, scoring goals and being five goals ahead in games...they just wanted honest performances. That couldn't be further from what we expect today. It's done and we have to move on."

Gray insists he won’t let his players feel sorry for themselves as they aim to end a 16-game winless league run.

"We've delivered a message and the players have got behind that message of what we need to do,” he added. “The message in today's game wasn't massively dissimilar but the players were unable to deliver any of the things we've worked on over the past three weeks which is the biggest disappointment for me.

"We'd 14 or 15 players that were non-performers...we can take one or two players being off their game. That makes it look like we're being outworked because our spaces and gaps are too big.

"We've worked hard in the last three weeks to close those spaces, be more solid and be able to counter-attack. None of that was on display which is frustrating and as manager you're trying to work out why.

"You can see in the changing room the default position of this season with heads down, but they know we won't accept feeling sorry for ourselves."