Darren Mullen Newry City v Newington post-match

Newry City manager Darren Mullen spoke to us this afternoon after his side defeated Newington 3-1.

Transcript

00:00So Darren, a winning return to the showgrounds, probably a fair assessment that you're the

00:04better team and deserve another three points?

00:06Yeah, we were. I thought we dominated the first half but that means nothing unless you

00:11put the ball in the net. We didn't create a multitude of chances for all the possession

00:14we had. We were caught, the circle punch was a good finish from the lad. We could see it

00:17just from our part of the side lane. So yeah, disappointed to be going 1-0 down after having

00:22the ball, so much of the ball. The message at halftime was just relax, don't panic, get

00:27one goal, get ourselves back into it. Thankfully we got that early goal in it and then after

00:32that it only looked like one team was going to win it.

00:34Was that crucial, the fact that heads didn't drop and of course you made a quick start

00:37in the second half, got that equalising goal pretty quick?

00:39Yeah, because it's easy to feel sorry for yourself when you're down round the bottom

00:43and things aren't going to plan. I thought we did that a wee bit last week and we were

00:47talking during the week, don't worry about it, you just go and play your football, I'll

00:50deal with anything else. So yeah, to get that early goal gave the lads a wee bit of confidence

00:54and then to push on and I thought we were worthy of some good finishes towards the end.

00:59It's still very early days obviously, but are you seeing things in terms of progression,

01:03in terms of what you want to see from the lads and in terms of your own game plan?

01:07Yeah, we could see it in training this week, but it's alright in training, you need to

01:09take that into games. Thankfully we did that today, maybe a different type of formation

01:15that used a different type of tactics or whatever it might be, but they've been taken on board

01:19and I have to say they're a good bunch of lads. It is difficult when you're down there

01:22but you certainly can't fault their effort. Anybody watching the game today could see

01:25they run themselves into the ground and we just need to get them believing into this.

01:30They're a talented bunch, it's just sometimes confidence is low, you're not playing as well

01:34as you can, so hopefully that win today can give them a wee bit of a boost.

01:38It's a platform isn't it now, it's something you can build upon?

01:41It is, because we needed to get wins, points on the board. Last week's performance wasn't

01:47good enough, but in fairness we are down a few players, so having Moaner back today and

01:51Scully back today, you could see a big difference. We could start to put our players in a more

01:55natural position, so the more players back we get, the easier it becomes. We need to

02:00build on today, it can't be just a case of a good performance and a good win today, we

02:04need to go to Ballyclare next week and start to get a wee bit of momentum.