Darren Mullen post match Rathfriland Rangers v Newry City

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Darren Mullen's return to the dugout with Newry City was an eventful one, as his side overcame Rathfriland Rangers in a penalty shoot out.

Transcript

00:00So Darren, pretty eventful return to football for you, can you give me a taste of how that

00:04felt tonight being back in the dugout for Newry City?

00:06My head's busting at this stage. I can remember back from management, I need a couple of towels

00:11to have that. Look, whether we had one on penalties or not, I still want to say the

00:14same thing. Extremely proud of the players, they've been questing as a group I suppose

00:18lately in terms of whether they're good enough, whether they want enough and I think they

00:21answered that in abundance tonight. You know this isn't an easy place to come to, they're

00:26friendly, they're a decent side, but I thought, extra time, we showed a wee bit of character

00:30and that's what I said to the lads before, no matter what happens tonight, we need to

00:32show a wee bit of character and they showed that in abundance tonight.

00:35And you were down, fair to say, a number of bodies as well and you had young players who

00:38stepped in and they had to step in really and they were put under pressure, they let

00:42Gould get in to extra time but as you already touched on, they stood up tonight didn't they?

00:44They did, yeah, and I don't like making excuses but we had two subs at one point today and

00:49we dipped into the 20s and young Adam Doran's come in, brilliant, great lad, to come in

00:55in that environment, to be thrown into deep end and the lad only found out last night

00:59that he was coming in and he worked his socks off but as a group I thought the lads stuck

01:04together because it was a difficult game, especially conceding so late, that can be

01:08difficult enough to deal with but I thought we masked that really well and we dug in.

01:11You only had two days, were you able to do much in terms of putting together a game plan,

01:15tactics, anything like that in the last couple of days?

01:17We had a meeting last night and we had a bit of an overview in terms of how you want the

01:21team to play but in terms of getting a session with them, no, but you could see tonight parts

01:27of the play, we played really well, we slowed it down at times, we were a wee bit hectic

01:31on the counter trying to go all gung ho but we just need to keep the ball and a wee bit

01:35of patience and I thought we did that really well tonight.

01:37Look, there's lots to work on, it's a work in progress and we likely carried away but

01:41it's a nice start.

01:42And having Darren King back is a huge lift as well isn't it?

01:45It is, I thought we needed that back, just a bit of a leader in there, a wee bit of bank,

01:49I thought he was excellent.

01:51For a fella that hasn't trained or played, as soon as he came in he just slotted in straight

01:54away.

01:55In fairness to Stephen Ball, I thought it was weighing on him to be honest and I thought

02:02he was excellent tonight.

02:03You don't need to wear the armband of a leader, not just the two lads but the team as a group

02:08all stood up tonight and as I said it was a test of character and they passed it.

02:11Now a tricky test at the weekend coming back to league football, something to build on

02:16I suppose Darren, isn't it, that you have maybe a morale boost as much as anything to

02:19get a win tonight?

02:20It is and that was the plan, try and get a performance and build on something that we

02:26can take into Saturday because we know it's going to be difficult up in Institute.

02:29They're a good side, they did really well last year, probably shouldn't be down round

02:32the bottom and like I say I probably feel they should be higher up but there's no easy

02:36games in this league.

02:37It's going to be a tough game, we'll need to see how many bodies we have for the weekend

02:41because a couple of lads have gone off tonight so I don't know who we're going to have.

02:45We'll just dig in, it's not an excuse, we know every team has injuries, we just need

02:49to see who we have and hopefully we can take a wee bit of positivity now into the game

02:53at the weekend.

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