Gary Bell reckons pressure brings the best out of Greenisland as they look to pinch the final promotion place from this Saturday’s opponents, league leaders Holywood.
As things stand, even victory in their crunch home game at Glenkeen Avenue at the weekend, and the following in their last game of the season at home to Plunkett, might not suffice, with Holywood still able to seal a place in 1B next season should they take the points from their closing game at home to Shorts.
Yet, while it’s out of Greenisland’s hands, Holywood slipping up in their last two against two sides in the top four is still a possibility, and while that remains the case, former Ballyclare Comrades man Bell insists Greenisland will give it everything they have got.
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“If we don’t win on Saturday, we’re out of it completely, Holywood and Plunkett would go up,” explained the veteran left back.
“It’s out of our hands, we have to win on Saturday and then rely on Shorts to do us a favour, but Shorts are up there too, sitting fourth, so you don’t know.
“But it’s still all to play for, we’ve had a couple of big games there where we knew we had to win and we’ve turned up and won them.
“But taking it to the last game of the season, it would be good for the league so hopefully we can take it to the last day.
“We have plenty of senior players there, myself, (Paul) McCord, (Kris) Malone, Simon Moffatt, there’s about seven or eight of us who have been about and know what it’s about, so it’s good for us to be around the younger lads and push them on.
“So hopefully we can take it to the last day, it would be lovely if we could, but if we don’t, obviously we weren’t good enough.
“The start of the season cost us, we had a few injuries, a few long-term ones and we couldn’t get a really settled squad.
“But we picked up there after Christmas, we went 10 unbeaten, and it still might not be good enough.
“That just shows how tough it can be, but fair dues to the rest of the squads, it just shows how strong they are too. You had Tullycarnet who were up there and had a good run then fell away, and Shorts, if that Plunkett incident didn’t happen, they could maybe have been sitting third or maybe second as well.”
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