Stephen McNarry admits he was a relieved man to see Woodvale cease the rot and finish a run of three straight defeats with a 7-3 dismantling of Bangor Swifts on Saturday.
Drawing on final season’s experiences, the Woodvale chief reckons momentum is central to his facet’s possibilities of promotion this 12 months, and with that in thoughts, felt they might ill-afford to fall any additional behind within the league.
As issues stand now, nevertheless, at this admittedly early juncture, his facet are proper within the thick of it after strikes from Robert Black (2), Kyle Lowe, Dylan Lyttle, Jonathan McKee, Neil Graham and Kai Hefferon shot the hosts up into third place, two factors off the tempo.
Final 12 months, McNarry’s males inflicted a primary dwelling league defeat in additional than two seasons on St Oliver Plunkett, underscoring a confidence across the membership that they have been set to problem.
However simply as they have been build up steam, a raft of postponements and free weekends stalled their progress.
Their subsequent sport, a full six weeks later, noticed Plunkett take revenge 5-4, and Woodvale by no means “recovered”, as McNarry recollects it.
In fact, the fixture listing and the climate is out of his management as soon as once more this season, however after dropping their first league sport of the season in opposition to Shorts a couple of weeks again, after which struggling back-to-back cup exits to Dunloy within the Metal Cup and Holywood within the Border, McNarry was decided to see his membership again on observe.
So Saturday’s goalfest at Clarendon was the right tonic.
“We really feel we may be aggressive, there appears to be a superb buzz across the membership, the second staff bought a brand new supervisor (Craig Dickson) this 12 months, coaching has been sensible and everybody has been pulling in the identical route,” McNarry instructed the Belfast Telegraph.
“We’d like to go up — I believe final 12 months we completed round fifth — so we wish to push for the highest two and who is aware of, this 12 months possibly we will, however there’s going to be a protracted street forward.
“Final season, that’s what we learnt, we had a six-week lay-off and we by no means actually recovered, so we actually wanted that win on Saturday.
“A number of years in the past, 1C was once a given, however this final couple of years, you’ve bought Tullycarnet, Greenisland, Shorts are all the time in or round it, then you definately’ve bought Finaghy and Willowbank coming into it, all good sides.
“So anybody in that league can take factors off anyone else; Saintfield have had a few good outcomes, Bloomfield have had a few respectable outcomes.
“I simply suppose if we will hold it collectively over the subsequent wee whereas, attempt to get our squad again collectively, I believe we’ll do alright.
“Nevertheless it’s going to be actually powerful. In earlier leagues, there have been video games the place you checked out them and felt, ‘We will take factors there or no matter,’ however now, it’s only a battle, week after week after week. You may’t take any sport with no consideration, there’s a protracted street forward however we’ll simply hold going.”
With the addition of Scotty Nixon from Shankill United and Daniel Ellis from Grove, McNarry is adamant Woodvale are a stronger proposition than they have been final 12 months, and all of the extra so for the return of a handful of key gamers who have been crocked for a lot of the earlier marketing campaign.
Certainly, McNarry has been buoyed by the return to motion of membership captain Brian McAllister and Graham Aston, whereas the spotlight of his afternoon on Saturday was the scoring return of Neil Graham, nearly precisely a 12 months to the day since he snapped his Achilles in a cup tie at Rathfriland, simply 4 video games into his swap to Clarendon.
“We’re undoubtedly stronger,” insisted McNarry. “And we’ve a few gamers again from final 12 months and that’s a giant increase.
“Brian McAllister was out nearly all of final season, we had Graham Aston out for a superb whereas final 12 months as properly and he’s got here again in, and it’s been nice to get Neil Graham again in.
“It’s been a protracted trek again for him, however he’s been sensible, he’s been down across the place and to get on with 20 minutes to go, and to attain... To be out that lengthy and get a purpose and get him again in after such a foul harm has been excellent.
“So it’s been powerful with the quantity of accidents we’ve had, Gary McDermott is one other one, out with a hamstring, he’s a extremely, actually good participant and we haven’t actually had the prospect to make use of him, however hopefully it’s all easing.”
Turning to Saturday’s sport, McNarry felt Woodvale have been good worth for the factors.
“The win yesterday did us a world of fine,” he mentioned.
“It was a good sport, I believed we performed actually, very well, I believed Bangor gave it a superb go within the first half as properly, however I believe second half, we have been simply too robust for them and doubtless deserved the win in the long run.”