Paul Doolin sees positives after tough start

Paul Doolin’s men have faced Linfield, Coleraine, Crusaders and Glentoran in the opening month one solitary goal to show for their efforts.

While their points tally may not make pretty reading at present Doolin is quick to point out those game are not the ones his team will be judged on come the end of the season.

He asked: “Are we going to be competing with the likes of Linfield, Glentoran, Crusaders and Coleraine?

“Let’s be fair, we’re not because we don’t have that type of squad and we have different aims.

“We stayed in the league, we want to try and push on from where we were.

“We just have to hope that when the games come around we might start causing those teams more problems.

“It’s trying to click and get something from a game, we might have got something out of the second half against Glentoran.

“It was another tough game for us.

“Over the course of the 90 minutes though it was probably the best we’ve played.

“We didn’t really get the rib of the green, but I thought we were excellent over the course of the second half.

“We played really well, we had a lot of attacks but it was Glentoran who scored.

“It’s small margins.”

Things don’t get any easier for the Ports today as they entertain last year’s runners-up, Cliftonville.

But while it may be another tough ask for Doolin’s squad, he is hoping the full week of training will have benefited his players.

“We had three games in six days but thankfully now we’ve had a bit of a break before the Cliftonville game,” he told Ports TV.

“The more games we have the more the new players will be integrated, and we will hopefully have injured players returning.

“We have positives to take out of the second half of the Glens game. We were able to go toe-to-toe with them but we have to try and do more.”