Ryan Harvey reckons Dundonald have given themselves “a fighting chance” to beat the drop after his starring role in Saturday’s 4-0 drubbing of basement boys Ballywalter.
The former Welders man, 40 on his next birthday, rolled back the years at the weekend, scoring one and setting up two before a pre-planned change at the break saw him subbed with the game effectively won at 3-0.
Irrespective of his comeback, and the fact he’s now itching for involvement in next week’s game against Barn, it’s the fate of Dundonald which is uppermost on the player-coach’s mind.
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And to that end, it’s been a positive month, with the relegation-threatened Billy Neill Centre men posting six points from a possible nine to keep themselves within touching distance of a tightly-packed group of four or five teams just ahead of them in 1B.
“Barn is a massive game, if we can win that, that would put us right back in the mix,” explained Harvey, number two to boss Chris Nicholl.
With an extra team in 1B this season, it extends the league by two fixtures, so Dundonald with eight games to go still have some room to play with.
However, speculation that three could go down this season has only intensified the battle for points at the bottom of the table.
“We had to win on Saturday,” added Harvey. “Even though they are bottom of the league and haven’t won all season, we still had to beat them.
“We cruised it to be honest, and that puts us right back in the mix. Looking above us, there are three teams, Bryansburn, Downshire and Ballynahinch (United) who are four points above us, but we’ve a game in hand on two of them.
“And even 18th Newtownabbey, they are six points ahead of us but we have a game in hand too, so if we win our game in hand, we are one behind them and three behind 18th who are sitting in 10th.”
Certainly, the mood has changed since an 8-0 humbling at the hands of Dunmurry Young Men at the end of January there, a result which Harvey believes was a blessing in disguise.
“We’ve got a bit of confidence now, that’s two wins in our last three,” he said.
“We learnt our lesson, we got spanked eight there and it sort of hit home. From me and Nicholl took over, we’ve sort of been trying to figure out... moving people about just trying to get our best team out.
“But we’ve got a back four that is working at the minute, and from we conceded eight, I think we’ve conceded one in the last three games.
“Our last three games, we’ve had the same back four with Lewis (Crothers) in nets and he’s been super for us.
“We’ve got Jonny Tumelty up front for us again, and we signed ‘Wack’ there the other week, Craig McMillen, and that gave us a big, big lift.
“He’s played there the last two games, he needs to get a bit fitter, he hasn’t played much in the last few months, but when he does, he’ll run amok for us.
“So we’re feeling optimistic. When we took over, their confidence, you could tell straight away it was low, very, very low, but we’ve done a few things and to be fair to the boys, they’ve responded.
“They’re putting the effort in in training, they are weighing in, we’re getting good numbers, and they are busting their balls on a Saturday, running and battling, so we’ve gave ourselves a fighting chance.”
Tumelty helped himself to a brace on Saturday, with Chris Morton also on target for the hosts alongside Harvey.
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