Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
SCORE AND ROAR Mals comeback gives Brendy something to shout about as 5-5 draw ends poor run
BRENDY HAMILTON reckons Malachians can take heart from their second half display at Abbey Villa after a 5-5 draw on the road ended their fourgame losing streak.
The North Belfast outfit scored four goals in the second half to take the lead from 3-1 down before eventually finishing with a share of the spoils at Adams Park.
After four straight defeats in 1A, Hamilton was delighted to finally register a point, and he hopes his players take inspiration from the way they fought back.
It’s been a tough start to his reign at Malachians, with Hamilton and his assistant PJ O’neill having to rebuild the first team from the bottom up after a summer exodus of players forced a re-evaluation of targets.
He knows it is a work-in-progress, and that there will be pain along the way, but he reckons he now has the nucleus of a squad he can work with, and is urging them to stick together and dig deep as the Mals look to salvage something from their season.
“In my opinion, I feel we can stay in the league and then we can hopefully build on what we have got,” said Hamilton.
“We have the core there, a good 14, 15 or maybe 16, so we need to keep that and hopefully add to it over the summer.
“But the main priority is to stay in the league. If you had have asked me at the start of the season, coming in I thought I was just having to add three or four to challenge for promotion.
“But now, it’s about staying in the league and then we can look at it for next season.
“When I took over, I got a list of 29 names and out of that list, two players stayed.
“So from the very first whistle, you are fighting a battle. We’ve brought between us 20-plus players to the club, now that’s not to say they all stayed because some have left in that time. So it’s been frustrating, there’s no real platform and you are trying to build from scratch and get players who have the right mentality.
“We made a very good start, two good wins and a good draw, and then from Orangefield [a 6-2 defeat], it’s been up and down.
“But every week we are chopping and changing positions, that’s the hardest bit, and we’re just trying to get consistency on the pitch with players.
“We’re trying to get the same starting XI because we are always making two or three changes and that’s the frustrating part of it.”
Fra Taplin and Marty Jones both bagged braces for the visitors on Saturday with Pearse Mcauley also on target as they overturned a 3-1 deficit to lead 4-3, before eventually being pegged back for the draw. Nevertheless, Hamilton knows the performance will work wonders for confidence ahead of next weekend’s home game against league leaders Killyleagh, unbeaten so far in 1A.
“It wasn’t one for the faint-hearted but for the neutral, it was a brilliant game,” added Hamilton.
“And it was great for us to come back because our confidence is low at the minute, we’re just constantly up against it, even if the results haven’t matched the performances in a lot of games.
“We’ve been very unlucky in general but it is what it is unfortunately. We just have to keep grinding them out and keep trying and every point like Saturday’s is a help.
“That point could keep us up, but the objective from here on is just to win as many home games as we can and we go into next week’s game with confidence because we have stopped the rot.
“We scored four goals in the second half. We haven’t done that this season, so there are positives from the game and negatives, but we will try to work on the positives and just keep focused on what we are doing.”