Uncertainty surrounds Reilly’s future as Derrychara boss

Derrychara United 0 Lisbellaw United 2

Uncertainty surrounds the future of Derrychara United manager Andy Reilly, after he was not present at the team’s 2-0 defeat to Lisbellaw United on Saturday.

Reilly masterminded Derrychara’s first ever promotion to the top flight last season, but there is a question mark hanging over his future involvement with the club.

Derrychara have not yet clarified the current situation, with Chairman Johnny Noble stating that they would not be commenting on the matter “until all is resolved”.

On the field of play, Derrychara suffered their sixth consecutive league defeat, going down to a resurgent Lisbellaw side who scored in either half through Lewis Vance and Stuart Johnston.

Despite the victory, manager Kyle Mccleery admitted it was far from their best performance of the season.

“They pushed us all the way, but from our point of view we know our performance wasn’t good enough,” he said.

“There were a lot of rumours flying around about their manager stepping down and Derrychara potentially not being able to field a team, and that was a bit of a distraction for us. We were worried about complacency setting in, and to be honest I think it did affect us because it is as bad as we had played for a long time.

“Having said that, it was encouraging to come away with a clean sheet and pick up three points away from home. We managed to grind out a result without playing well, and we have to take the positives from that. We were lucky to be one up at half time because we were abysmal. It was very poor from our point of view, but I have to give Derrychara credit.

“With everything that had been happening during the week, they came out and put it up to us. It was a tricky game and it was touch and go for a while. Maybe last year we wouldn’t have been able to grind out a result, but this year maybe we are a bit more resilient, and we were delighted to come away with three points.”

The win lifts Lisbellaw to third place in the Division One table, and Mccleery is delighted with the start they have made to the season.

“The league table makes pretty good reading but we know every game is very difficult, so we just take it one fixture at a time. We are delighted to have 15 points on the board already because it took us a long time to get 15 points last season, but we have to get back to playing as well as we were at the start of the season.”

Lisbellaw carved the first goal scoring opportunity of the game with just five minutes on the clock when Jamie Coalter found himself unmarked six yards from goal from a corner, but he directed his header wide of the post.

Chances then dried up for both sides, with tame efforts from Jamie Mcfarland and Scott Moutray the best either side could muster. With half time approaching Paul Elliott dragged a long range effort wide of the post after a mishit clearance from Derrychara goalkeeper Josh Brownlee, but his side did take the lead moments before the interval.

Richard Woods did well to get to the byline and although Moutray scuffed his shot at goal, Vance was on hand at the far post to fire the ball into the roof of the net.

Lisbellaw were more convincing in the second half and Jay Taylor fired over the bar from Woods’ pass, before Woods had a great chance of his own, but shot straight at Brownlee from inside the six yard box.

Derrychara had an effort spurned when Mcfarland’s cross was headed over the bar and substitute Winston Moran also came close, but Mcdonald saved well to preserve the visitors’ clean sheet. Deep into injury time Lisbellaw made sure of the points with a second goal, Caolan Flanagan breaking forward before setting up Johnston to fire into the bottom corner of the net.