Gers end campaign with defeat

“I am disappointed, of course I am. But these results weren’t unexpected in the final analysis. I say that because, as it turned out unfortunately, we were right down to the bare bones in terms of player availability,” he said.

Hughes’ team had kept eight clean sheets in the previous 10 matches, before losing 2-1 and 5-0 inside four days.

“In all my years involved in football, as a player, coach or manager, I can never remember any team I have been involved with suffering from the spate of injury, work and suspension problems that we have encountered this past few weeks,” explained Hughes.

“We had 10 first team players unavailable last week, and I had to bring in an Under-19 goalkeeper against Institute – and I can honestly say that young Robert Currie didn’t do too badly at all and made some good saves. So that tells you how bad the result could have been!

“I also gave a debut to a young striker, Philip McCann, who came on as substitute on Tuesday against Bangor and made his first start at Drumahoe on Saturday. He’s a good prospect as well.

“While it was good to get a look at these young lads, it perhaps wasn’t fair to be throwing them in under a bit of pressure like that. But they will have enjoyed the experience and that’s what football is all about when you are starting out on a career.

“We could have done better had the back four performed the way they had done for the few months before this, and perhaps scraped us a result.

“But, we can say all we like about the importance of the occasion, but human nature is such that it’s normal enough for players to unwittingly take their foot off the gas when the stakes are not high.

“I am happy enough with how we performed since the turn of the year. Okay, we came up a little bit short but it was always on the cards that this would happen, especially when you look at the large numbers of fixtures that were crammed into such a short space of time at the business-end of the league campaign.

“It wasn’t the way we wanted to end the season, but we put in plenty of effort and I have no qualms with anything that has happened and the players have done us proud since the turn of the year.”