David Jeffrey believes Ballymena United' winless run in the league will change sooner rather than later if they continue to keep their performance levels high.
It's 10 games now since the Sky Blues last recorded a victory in the league, but Jeffrey believes they haven't been far away during that run.
Tuesday night's game at Glentoran was a case in point for the Ballymena boss who took great satisfaction that it took almost 90 minutes before he received any stick from the Glentoran fans such was the level of performance from his own team.
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Ultimately though they were undone by a last-gasp goal as Danny Purkis netted a winner for the Glens in the 88th minute with Jeffrey calling it "cruel punishment".
"I thought we were more than worthy of a draw without any shadow of a doubt, and on another evening we could have won the game," he said.
"The players gave absolutely everything.
"I suppose the most tangible way that I can really describe our performance, and how good it was, is that it took 90 minutes for the Glentoran fans to sing 'Cheer up David Jeffrey'!
"That's the biggest backhanded compliment you'll ever get.
"We were well in the game, did fantastically well, we were disciplined, worked hard and passed the ball well.
"I thought Jordan Williamson was absolutely immense. In 19-year-old Craig Farquhar we had an absolute giant, and when you think where we've brought young Robbie McVarnock from.
"You could go through all of the players individually, they gave absolutely everything.
"The task is how do we lift them and get them up again.
"When you look at our performances over the last number of weeks - the Glentoran game at home, Larne at home, Crusaders, the Irish Cup tie and Coleraine away, which we should have got something from.
"Some day it will change, Tuesday night was cruel punishment."
It doesn't get any easier for Ballymena United as they head to Inver Park on Friday evening to take on league leaders Larne, but Jeffrey is embracing the task at hand as they go in search of that elusive win.
"We have Larne the league leaders up next," he said.
"They are on a great run of form, Tiernan has done a fantastic job there, they have improved year on year, so it will be very difficult.
"But it's another challenge to embrace and we'll look forward to it."
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