Cliftonville’s George McMullan with Ballinamallard’s John Currie.
Photo-Jonathan Porter/Presseye.
Cliftonville 1
Ballinamallard United 0
Ballinamallard United ended their run of difficult games with a narrow 1-0 defeat at Solitude.
They made the long trip home wondering just how they didn’t get anything from this game after carving out a host of opportunities in the first half against the champions.
Ballinamallard manager Whitey Anderson felt it was his side’s best performance of the season.
“The best team lost this one. We really should have won it,” said Anderson. “It was our best performance of the season from start to finish.”
“Tremendous credit to the players and we really should have earned at least a draw. Cliftonville are a quality side but our players were magnificent from the first minute to the 95th.”
Anderson went on, “We didn’t go up there to park the bus. We really took the game to them. We hit the cross bar and post and really should have scored and their goal was a comedy of errors. We had ample opportunity to clear our lines, but didn’t and the ball ended up in the back of the net.”
“Our performance was as good as it has been all season and our football was top drawer. The reality is that we are not scoring and we keep coming back to that. We are having good possession, but not taking our chances.”
Anderson felt that Stuart Hutchinson was exceptional in the middle of the park.
“He was exceptional and put in a tremendous shift. Andy Crawford too was superb with his workrate and hunger,” said Anderson.
Duwayne McManus should have put the Mallards ahead in the first half when he collected a square ball from Ryan Campbell, and after good work by Jason McCartney, but the midfielder somehow hit the bar from only yards out.
Conor Devlin came to Cliftonville’s rescue shortly after when he deflected Andy Crawford’s shot onto the left upright.
Martin Donnelly struck the winner for the home side on 50 minutes after Beacom and Stafford failed to clear their lines. The ball fell to McMullan who headed into the path of scorer Devlin.
McManus thought he had levelled the score when he struck a superb curling effort which flew inches wide of the far post and keeper Devlin had to show his credentials when he got a hand to Steve Feeney’s glancing header from a McCartney cross.