Swifts must get to grips with ugly side of the game: Shiels
DEAN Shiels left Ballymena on Saturday after Dungannon Swifts’ 5-1 mauling vowing to watch the game again over the weekend.
Hopefully he didn’t have too many nightmares from the video nasty and it would seem likely that some of the cast from that performance may not get an encore against Glenavon this evening.
It was certainly the low spot of his embryonic managerial career thus far, but the former Northern Ireland international is determined to stick to his guns over the way he feels the game should be played.
“Scorelines do not define us right now,” he insisted.
“What I want to see is who is withme,whowantstoplaythis way, who wants to be brave and get on the ball and who wants to fight when we don’t have the ball.
“I will learn a lot between now and the end of the season, so it’s up to them.”
In fairness to the Swifts, the second half of the game at Ballymena was much more pleasant viewing, helped in no small part by an eye-catching cameo by Ben Gallagher.
“He has exceptional talent but there are a lot of talented players there, but we have to do the other side,” added Shiels. “We have players who will play, who will be brave and make the pitch big. But in transition, when we lose it, we have to defend and we didn’t do that on Saturday.
“It takes time. We’ve had a limited number of training sessions since I came in, it has been Saturday-tuesday-saturday games and we get them on a Thursday and they are sore and recovering and we try to give them as much information as we can.”
Looking ahead to tonight’s Stangmore Park challenge against Glenavon, he knows that Gary Hamilton’s side will be another big test.
“Gary has done a fantastic job and it will be another challenge,” he added. “They will put balls in our box and we have to stand up to that, and then we have to brave when the ball is turned over and we get it.”