Crusaders’ Joshua Robinson with Ballinmallard’s Mark Stafford. Picture by Jonathan Porter/Presseye.com
Crusaders 3
Ballinamallard United 1
Two second half Joshua Robinson strikes sent Ballinamallard to their first defeat of the season.
Despite playing into a considerable breeze a smart Johnny Lafferty strike gave the visitors a deserved lead on the 27th minute.
A strong defensive performance from the Ferney Park outfit saw Crues confined to just one shot in the first half. However that Paul Heatley rifled effort gave ‘Mallards keeper Fergal Murphy no chance and saw the sides going in tied at the interval.
Crusaders are undefeated so far this season, but it was Whitey Anderson’s men who took the initiatitve at the start of the second half.
“We started the second half very bright,” said Anderson.
“John Currie was very unlucky. A ball was played in by Liam Martin, the ball just sat up in front of him and he scooped it over the bar and I think that was a very important point in the game. We broke a couple of time early in the first 15 minutes of the second half and with the right ball in we maybe could have found ourselves ahead.”
The game turned against Ballinamallard after the hour mark. First Crusaders’ Joshua Robinson scrambled home the ball after a failed clearance from a corner with 63 minutes gone. Then Jason Lafferty was involved in an awkward collision which saw him have to go off with an ankle injury. That forced Ballinamallard into a double substitution with Stuart Hutchinson introduced to serve as point man in the attack.
Robinson administered the coup de grace with seven minutes to go.
“The last 25 minutes, in fairness, Crusaders got a foothold in the game and for some reason we got deeper when we shouldn’t have been and we lost our way a wee bit to be honest with you. It’s something we’ve been working on, but unfortunately we didn’t take control of it in the second half and that’s something we need to look at and manage far better than we did in the second half, that’s for sure. We could have been winning two one, we ended up losing three one. Goals change the momentum of games,” said Anderson.
“Jason McCartney got an ankle injury, I think it was an awkward collision and unfortunately he just went over on it and I’d say he could be out for a few weeks. He’s a big loss to us. John Currie had been doing very well for us, but the reality was we were two one down and it was simply a case of bringing on Stuarty Hutchinson on to see if he could give us a bit of something going forward.”
Despite the Mallard’s defensive solidity in the first hour Anderson was disatisfied with the manner of Crusaders last two goals.
“The two goals they scored were from set plays which was very disappointing, they were very scrappy goals. One was from a second phase of play from a corner and the last one was from a corner to the back post which we didn’t defend very well.”
Anderson will be hoping for better fortune when Ballinamallard host Glentoran in their first home game of the season this Saturday.