NO COMFORT

Heagney knows he has fallen short of the expectations he set himself with Mac, but he won’t rest until they are back at the top

TONY HEAGNEY admits his first few months as Immaculata chief have been tougher than he expected – but has vowed he won’t rest until he guides them back to the top.

The Mac’s four-game winning streak in the league came to a halt on Saturday as leaders East Belfast fought back from 4-2 down to earn a share of the spoils at ‘The Cage’, with the dropped points leaving the West Belfast men with a mountain to climb, even at this early stage of the season.

Heagney was Kevin Lawlor’s on-field general during their march to the Premier Division title two years ago, before stepping up to replace him as boss at the beginning of the season after the Mac were dethroned as champions by Crumlin Star.

So he knows what it takes to win the Amateur League’s top flight, and acknowledges that Star’s eight-point cushion over them is already a daunting one.

“I think the result suits Crumlin Star more than anybody,” said Heagney.

“They are the team this year, they haven’t lost any games and it’s up to the rest of us to catch them, but you need to be winning your home games and if you don’t, you have no chance.

“The result is disheartening but we haven’t really been thinking about the bigger picture in terms of the league, we just wanted to put a wee run together and take it from there.”

Heagney’s maiden campaign in the Grosvenor Road hot-seat has so far been complicated by the fact he has had to play himself far more often than he had envisaged, with the dual role of player-manager making his task doubly difficult.

With that in mind, he hopes to recruit a few reinforcements to the ranks to allow him to wind down his involvement on the pitch and concentrate much more on the management side of things.

“It’s been difficult because our squad isn’t as big as what it has been,” said Heagney.

“So I have had to play more matches than what I wanted to and trying to find that balance is really hard.

“You are trying to get the team ready, then trying to get myself mentally ready too, and I don’t think it helps either – the team’s cause or my cause.

“So I think I just need to sign a few more players because I’m finding it impossible to do both.

“But the team’s been playing well. The Mac have always been about cups and on that side of things we’ve been going really well but the league has been disappointing.” On the game, a pulsating 4-4 draw, Heagney admits it was hard to stomach, particularly with the East’s equaliser coming so late in the game.

Nevertheless, he was magnanimous enough to congratulate the visitors on their never-say-die attitude.

“It felt more like a defeat at the end to be honest,” said Heagney.

“We were very disappointed, we played really well, especially in the first half, we were really on top of them and the players all did what they were asked to.

“We spoke to them at the start of the match and told them we wanted a hightempo game, to press them high and that’s what we did. We got two penalties and I don’t know how the keeper didn’t get sent off, even for two yellow cards, but anyway, that’s another story.

“But we conceded some sloppy goals to give them hope and again some individual errors have cost us and that’s been the story of our season.

“And listen, all credit to East Belfast too, they didn’t stop and they may say at the end that they deserved a point.

“But on the balance of play, I thought we played really well and dominated the game.

“I must say Marty Bradley was brilliant for us. He’s still very young, but he ran the show in the middle of the park, while Darren Mcnamee didn’t give Danny Mckee a kick at the back.”