Stephen Baxter: Paul Heatley wasn't fit but still produced moment of quality to help Crusaders win

​With the points seemingly set to be shared after Ross Clarke’s opener was cancelled out by a vicious Pablo Andrade strike, up stepped veteran Heatley to produce the moment of magic which ensured Crusaders returned to winning ways after a shock midweek cup defeat eight miles up the road against Portadown.

Heatley missed that encounter due to injury and in an ideal world Baxter would have preferred to leave his talisman sitting on the bench at Lakeview Park, but needs must and the 36-year-old stepped up for his club once again by wonderfully controlling Jarlath O’Rourke’s lofted pass before rounding Berraat Turker and slamming into an empty goal with seconds left on the clock.

One of the best performers of his generation, Heatley has netted double figure Premiership goals in each season for the past decade and that crucial strike brought this campaign’s tally to five.

"When you’ve someone like Paul Heatley, who wasn’t fit to play here today and said he would give me 10 minutes, comes on and gives you 10 minutes like that, it isn’t too bad is it?" said Baxter. "I told him to go and rest for another week now because he wasn’t fit to play, Adam (Lecky) wasn’t fit to play and he gave us 10 or 15 minutes.

"That’s the mark of good professionals who go to the wire for you and help to get you over the line.

"If we had have been 2-0 to the good they wouldn't have came on.

"I asked them if they would sit on the bench for me because both were pretty much ruled out.

“Paul has that bit of magic and quality that scores you a winning goal and we fully deserved the win – we were the better team by some distance.”

With Jimmy Callacher and Rory McKeown both sidelined for the season while top scorer Ben Kennedy was also absent through injury and captain Billy Joe Burns suspended, Baxter was forced into some positional adjustments as Robbie Weir slid into defence alongside Josh Robinson and Daniel Larmour.

Jordan Owens made his first league start of the season with goalscorer Clarke deployed alongside him.

"We were (down to the bare bones),” added Baxter. "The injuries are mounting up on us, but that’s football and you have to work with it and try your best.

"We don’t make any fuss about it and will just get on with it.

"We had to put a couple of people into different positions to make sure we had enough to win this match and I thought Robbie Weir, Daniel and Josh were magnificent – nothing went in behind them all day.

"Ross Clarke was man of the match – he was absolutely superb and playing that centre forward role in beside Jordan Owens, who was a handful all day.”

It was Crusaders’ away form that derailed any chance of a potential Premiership title challenge last season – they won only four from 18 on the road while, in stark contrast, no team collected more home points (47) than Baxter’s men – but they’ve certainly gone the right way about correcting that issue this time around.

Saturday’s result means they sit second behind current leaders Linfield on away points won across the first eight matches of this campaign with 17 and no side has scored more on their travels (19).

"It was horrible last season and we worked very hard on aspects of our game and how we do it away from home,” said Baxter. "We’ve worked very hard on that to get more points and that has been working well for us.

"You always need to have focus on it and picking up points away from home is crucial.”