Marty Cox insists Holywood don’t want any favours as they look to seal their 1C title mission.
With three games to go, there are various outworkings of the run-in which would see the Spafield Park men crowned champions, or at least promoted as runners-up.
But having led the way at the top of the table for a large part of the season, Cox says the players want to close out the title themselves with a perfect finish of nine points from nine, starting this week at Tullycarnet whose own faint promotion hopes were extinguished at the weekend when Holywood won 3-1 at Woodvale, courtesy of goals from Stevie Anderson (2) and Calum James.
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Discounting Shorts in third place with just one game left and a possible points deduction, the weekend results narrowed the race for the top two spots to just Conor McGeown’s league leaders, Plunkett in second on the same points and with an identical record, and Greenisland a few points adrift in fourth.
So while the destination of the title is undecided, it remains in Holywood’s hands.
“We’re not there yet, we’ve still three games left and as far as we’re concerned, we want to win them all,” said Holywood stand-in skipper Cox.
“That’s all we’re aiming for and we’re just taking it one at a time. As it stands, we’re level on points with Plunkett, with a better goal difference, so it’s pretty much a shootout between ourselves, them and Greenisland who have caught up a bit.
“And we have to play Tullycarnet, Shorts and Greenisland in our last three games so we’re going to try and win them all.
“We need to go flat out, give it 100 per cent over the next three weeks and hopefully have something to look forward to at the end of it.”
Indeed for Cox, it’s important he and his team-mates don’t get distracted by anything else in the division, concentrating instead on the only things they can control.
“Plunkett and Greenisland have to play each other but we’re not thinking about that, in our heads we have to win all our three games and that’s the only thing for it really.”
Holywood held their nerve on Saturday, grabbing another vital win on the road at Woodvale.
“They had a couple of players sent off before half-time and we’d really got going in the game before that, moving the ball nicely and scored three good goals,” added Cox.
“But to be honest, Woodvale battled really well in the second half, they sat in with the nine men and we struggled to break them down a bit.
“We controlled the game, a bit of frustration we couldn’t score more, but at this stage of the season, it’s all about the three points.”
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