Nine men of Wakehurst suffer another setback

The Ballymena men suffered another defeat - this time 3-1 at Queen’s University - as they remain rooted to the bottom of the NIFL Championship Two table.

To compound Wakehurst’s misery, they also finished the game with nine men, in a match which saw the referee brandish his red card on three occasions.

“We got off to the worst possible start - it was a fairly disastrous opening 20 minutes,” admitted interim manager Dougie Stevenson.

“We conceded a really poor goal inside the opening two or three minutes and they scored again after 20 minutes - the most frustrating thing was that we had let Queen’s get a two goal lead early on without them even really having to do anything.

“Once we started doing the basics better, we came back into the game and got a goal back five minutes before half-time when Conor Ross crossed from the right and Conor Gregg headed into the bottom corner.

“We thought we could go on and give it a real go in the second half but we shot ourselves in the foot by conceding another poor goal in the second half - you just can’t give away three goal at this level,” said Stevenson.

The next setback for Wakehurst came when they had left-back Kurtis McCartney sent off for a second booking.

“It was pretty bizarre because the referee adjudged that Kurtis had been trying to jump up and block the ball at a throw-in, despite the fact that the guy threw it over Kurtis’ head down the line. It was one of those where even the Queen’s players didn’t know what was going on,” said Stevenson.

The 10 men then became nine late on when Conor Ross tangled with former Wakehurst striker Connor Mulholland and both were dismissed, with the referee and his assistant adjudging that both players had used their heads.