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.
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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.