By Rory McKee
ARDS manager John Bailie described his side’s stop-start form as being ‘like a yo-yo’ after they were comprehensively beaten by Limavady United last weekend.
Bailie’s men played 120 minutes in midweek before ultimately bowing out of the Bet McLean Cup on penalties to Dungannon Swifts, but he rejected the idea that tired legs were the reason for Saturday’s limp display.
“It had nothing to do with Wednesday night – we were well and truly beaten and second best all over the park from the second or third minute of the game,” said Bailie.
“If truth be told, Limavady came here and did a real job on us. They outworked us, outsmarted us and if they play like that every week, they’ll win the league convincingly.”
Bailie was criticial of the performance of the match officials during the clash and also blasted what he felt was gamesmanship from opponents Limavady, but conceded that Ards’ performance was ‘nowhere near’ good enough.
“I thought they [Limavady] refereed the game, going down for free-kicks every time the ball comes near them. For me, that’s wrong and I thought the referee was extremely poor.
“The linesman told the referee to book the goalkeeper 10 minutes before he did get booked, and in that case he gets sent off or he doesn’t time waste. But the bottom line is we weren’t anywhere near good enough.
“We’re going up and down like a yo-yo and the consistency just isn’t there,” added Bailie.
“We can’t seem to get any momentum because we take two steps forward and then three steps back. For 10 or 15 minutes at 3-1 down, we pressed and we hit the post and the bar, but on those occasions there’s two players in the box and we didn’t have that energy about us.
“We have outworked a lot of our opponents, that’s something we have done well at, but we didn’t do that on Saturday.
“Against Dungannon and against Newington, the work rate, desire and hunger was there. “But on Saturday it wasn’t there. I didn’t see anybody getting into the box for Jamie Browne’s cross just before half-time, and it’s an empty net.
“We seem to have that difficulty when we go behind in games and we need to work hard to rectify that. So it’s extremely disappointing because we’d been on a decent run with a couple of decent performances.”
With Annagh United pulling eight points clear at the top of the division, Ards know they must rediscover their form quickly if they are to avoid another season fighting it out in mid-table.
They travel to the Dub on Saturday (3pm) to face a Queen’s University side that despite suffering a pair of 1-0 defeats in their last two games, have made a promising start on their return to the second tier – including a 3-2 win over Ards in September.
John Bailie has Paul Donnelly available for selection again after the midfielder missed last weekend’s game through suspension. Defender Ryan Arthur could also feature in south Belfast, having missed the last month with a broken toe.
