Manuel Rooney played down Belfast Celtic Young Men’s big derby day win over Newhill on Saturday – insisting it was just another game ticked off in their quest for promotion.
But it was a huge result nevertheless in a title six-pointer, a 3-1 victory courtesy of goals from Tony Johnston (2) and John Brady which moved their four points clear of their rivals, having replaced them at the summit one week earlier in the wake of their 8-2 mauling of Carryduff Colts.
Still, as he surveyed the challenge ahead, Rooney was refusing to read too much into their advantage at the top, insisting there’s far too much football still to be played before they can start thinking about a coronation as champions.
“The win puts us in a very good place,” said the Belfast Celtic chief.
“Our aim at the start of the season was promotion and hopefully we can kick on now.
“But we’ve two hard games coming up, St Pat’s this week and 4th Newtownabbey, two away games and they will be very hard.
“We’ve still 10 games to go and still a long way. We’ve still to play Newhill and St Mary’s are looking very strong.
“We’ve been down to the bare bones at times this season, we’ve had to use our full squad but we’ve got a lot of players back now so we need to kick on until the end, and just keep going the way we are going.”
It was a battle on Saturday at Falls Park, with Rooney’s men fighting back from a goal down to claim the points.
And the Celtic boss reckons the introduction of two subs, Steven Curley and Conor McGahan, turned the game.
“We made a couple of tactical tweaks which really helped,” he added.
