‘We have to work on positives’ - Blair

The care-taker boss, like many spectators at Darragh Park, watched his side dominate the opening half-hour but a wonder strike from Warren Mullen completely changed the course of the match.

“We set out a game plan and it worked for the first 30 or 35 minutes but then they scored a wonder goal and that’s the type of luck those boys at the top of the league seem to have whenever they are playing sides down at the other end of the table,” he declared.

“Our heads sort of dropped a bit after that because of the form we have been in recently, unfortunately we just switched off after their opening goal and they scored their second just before the break and I think that just killed us.”

Blair also conceded that he changed things around at the break, but unfortunately those changes in formation didn’t alter the score-line.

“In the second half we went with three at the back, five men in midfield and two up front, we knew by doing that there would be more chances for them but I think we had to go for it.

“The guys are down at the minute, but they know what they have to do to get out of this rut. It’s hard work and to be honest I’m fed up saying it, it’s the most said word in our changing room, but hard work is the only thing that will get us out of this because our luck has to change sometime.”

Blair is taking some positives despite losing heavily at the weekend and he also admits his side showed more effort at Dergview than what they did at Glebe the week before.

“There’s definitely positives from Saturday’s defeat, firstly Mark Nicell’s goal and we also dominated things in the opening half-hour and those positive things we have to take out of the game and go back to training on Tuesday night and start all over again.

“It was a heavier defeat at Dergview but I was more hurting after the Glebe result, because we never turned up against Glebe, they had the three points after we conceded the early penalty.”