Munster’s return to United duty ruined by Glenavon result

Davy Munster slides in to tackle Glenavon's Eoin Bradley during Saturday's match at the Showgrounds. Picture: Pacemaker Press.

But neither of those minor ailments hurt the veteran defender as much as the manner of the Sky Blues’ capitulation in the 4-1 home defeat by Glenavon.

“Our performance, especially in the second half, was nowhere near good enough,” said Munster, who started the game as skipper with regular captain Allan Jenkins on the bench.

“We had done quite well in the first half, playing into the wind - we had created a few openings and Glenavon had only really threatened from one free kick in the first half.

“We conceded a bad goal at a bad time, just on the stroke of half-time but even at half-time, we felt we could create plenty of chances with the wind behind us and put Glenavon under pressure.

“The second goal set us back and then we conceded goals from individual errors.

“Our performances have been poor in recent weeks - the last time we probably played really well was in the second half against Linfield at Windsor Park.

“But we only have ourselves to blame - we’ve let Glenn and the supporters down in recent weeks.

“You can see in some of the players that they are maybe struggling for confidence a wee bit at the minute but the only way we can get past that is to stick together and keep working hard.

“When we were playing well earlier in the season, everybody wanted to get on the ball and things seemed almost easy.

“We’re in a bad run of form at the minute but the same group of players showed earlier in the season that we are capable of a lot better than we’re showing at the minute.

“The good thing is we have a game quickly and although going to Solitude is always tough, the players want to get back to playing quickly to try to put right what happened on Saturday.”

Saturday’s game was Munster first appearance since early September after he sustained a broken bone in his foot.

Manager Glenn Ferguson intentions when he re-signed Munster in the summer were to use his sparingly but the 35-year-old laughs: “I still think I can play every game”

“Glenn said to me that even when I’, not playing, he wanted me to keep an eye on things from the stand to give him a hand but while I enjoy that, when you’ve signed as a player, you want to play as much as you can.

“Playing in matches is actually the easy part - the hard part is training but while I’m able to do whatever everybody else is doing, I want to keep doing it,” added Munster.