Ciaran Caldwell admits he’s been frustrated by Crumlin United this season but buoyed by a trio of kids who have grabbed their breakthrough into the firsts by the scruff.
Fintan O’Boyle followed up a hat-trick with the 18s on Friday night with a goal in Saturday’s 2-0 defeat of Ballynahinch Olympic, with Nathan Watters also on the scoresheet.
Indeed in Caldwell’s opinion, the 17-year-old striker has been the club’s best player over the past month, while two other youngsters – Conal Cunningham and keeper Rory McBrier – have also equipped themselves superbly.
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“He’s a smashing player and Conal and Rory were excellent too, some people might raise their eyebrows at playing them kids at the business end of the season, and it’s been sink or swim and to be fair to them, they are all swimming,” explained the ex-Cliftonville schemer and Gibson Cup winner.
“It’s massive for us to have them coming through, and over the last month, Fintan has probably been our best player, week in, week out. We’re in a position where we have to play these players, and for them, if they see they’re not getting a chance, they are just going to pack it in and go elsewhere.”
Aside from the kids, however, Caldwell has been annoyed at how in and out his team have been across the campaign so far.
“I’m really disappointed,” added the United player-manager.
“But when I sit down and think about it, we’ve probably lost eight from the starting XI before Covid.
“We’ve had to use 17- and 18-year-olds from the youth team as I said and to be fair, it’s a tough learning curve for them.
“But our inconsistency, it’s been more disappointing for the senior players and we’ve talked about it, and that’s up to me to change that, I know they are good players.
“Our inconsistency has been a nightmare this season, but that’s been the case for every team in the league, you just don’t know what you are going to get from week to week, and that includes the top teams.”
Saturday’s win against a side down around Crumlin at the wrong end of the table was the perfect response to last week’s capitulation at Derriaghy, and timely too ahead of another six-pointer this weekend at Drumaness Mills.
With some 11 games to go, the Mill Road men haven’t really been mentioned as one of the sides battling relegation, but Caldwell knows how these things can go. A run of defeats coupled with results elsewhere going against his side could spell trouble, so with that in mind, he is targeting a strong finish to the season.
“We really needed that and it was a good win,” added Caldwell.
“I was talking to the boys and I was saying we’ve only really had two really bad performances, against Rathfriland we lost 3-0 and there last week against Derriaghy (4-0).
“Other than that, I can’t remember us going out and getting outplayed, and our goal difference is zero, so we’re winning by the odd goal, and losing by the odd goal, so we’re always in the games.
“But at the minute, we need to quickly get as many points on the board as we can because I know other teams are running out of games but I’d much rather have the points than the games to be honest.
“Some of the teams down around us only have a few games left, but there’s nothing to say they won’t win all those games, there was Larne Tech beating Crumlin Star, there are surprising results every week in our league.
“So we just need to make sure we turn up every week and get points between now and the end of the season.
“We’ve nine games left, and I think we’ll need maybe four or five wins to be totally guaranteed (safety).”
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