PJ O’Neill is adamant the tide will turn for Malachians after his team suffered yet another defeat by the odd goal on Saturday.
The 3-2 reverse at Rosario left the North Belfast outfit with just a solitary point from their first five league games, yet frustratingly for O’Neill and everyone associated with his club, four of those losses have been by the narrowest of margins.
Of course that’s scant consolation when it comes to the league stand- ings, with the Mals languishing at the bottom alongside Kilmore and Downpatrick.
Yet the table only tells half the story really, with performances and the competitive nature of all of their games – save for a 3-0 loss at neigh- bours Grove – suggesting O’Neill’s men are not far away.
Like every Amateur League club at this time of year, he has been get- ting by with a depleted squad, but after adding a number of fresh faces to the panel over the summer, including Paul McLarnon from Crumlin Star, O’Neill is convinced they’ll be OK.
He said: “Out of all our games, cups and all, I think we have been the better team in all of them bar against Grove.
“But we’ve just lost a bit of concentration in them and we’ve been punished. We have a very young squad and they are all good lads, they work hard and they know they can compete at this level.
“They are not getting tanked, it’s not like in games where you turn round and know you’ve been chinned.
“We’ve been competing and these teams we’ve been playing are top of the league and we’re thinking, ‘We could beat these ones easy enough on our day’.
“We have a lot of players missing too, I haven’t been able to get a full team out yet and on paper, we have such a team.
"But I’m hoping it’s just these first couple of months and then everything will settle down and then we can get our full team out, week in, week out.
“I’m even having to do the bench and I’m 41. There will be no place for me on the bench if I have a full squad.
“But this wee Mals team are not far off and I think 1A is a bit less competitive now that Killyleagh and Larne Tech have been taken out of it.
“I think everybody is very close to each other, there are only one or two players making the difference.”
It was the same old story for the Mals at the weekend as they came away from a dominant performance at Ulidia with nothing to show for the efforts, the only silver lining the continued hot streak of forward Fra Taplin whose goal took this tally for the season into double figures.
“That’s the way it’s been going for us, we’ve been up every game, 1-0 or 2-1, but we’ve missed loads of one- on-ones and even two penalties in games, so we’re just waiting on it clicking, everything else is good bar the results,” said O’Neill.
Next up for Malachians is a trip to Holywood this Saturday in the third round of the Steel & Sons Cup before they host Newcastle looking to avenge a 4-3 defeat at Shimna College on the opening weekend of the season.
And O’Neill knows back-to-back wins would be the perfect tonic to kick-start their season.
“I was gegging about in the changing rooms with the lads saying you may get Christmas Day booked off for the Steel & Sons because it’s the only cup we have left,” joked the Mals boss.
“But like always, the priority is the league, we want to stay in the league and we’re too good of a team and too talented to play any lower than that.
“We have a game at home to Newcastle in two weeks and hopefully we’ll get the win there and hopefully we can get a win in the Steel & Sons next week and that will be the kick in the arse weneed.”
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