Newry City manager Barry Gray spoke to us after his side lost 1-0 away to Dundela.
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00:00Barry, obviously opening day defeat, how do you reflect on the game?
00:04Yeah, listen, we're disappointed obviously. Didn't get the win that we wanted today.
00:09But that's just it. That's what we didn't get.
00:13The game in the second half turned into a game that was probably very little football led.
00:19That's what happens in championship times.
00:23But we're not too down on ourselves.
00:29I think we were a bit 1-0 today by taking it.
00:32So we only had two opportunities across the 90 minutes.
00:35We had lots of half opportunities ourselves and two really good chances in the second half.
00:40In the mix of it, little in the day.
00:43Can we be better? Yeah, absolutely.
00:46But not at this stage.
00:48We're not too tired of ourselves or anything like that.
00:51So just focus on a good base training and I'm excited.
00:55Can you take that bit of sadness that you weren't a better team over the 90 minutes?
00:59Can you take that as a positive and say that there are things this opening day that going forward you can be happy with?
01:03Yeah, absolutely. I'm disappointed with the scoreline. That's it.
01:07There's lots of things and areas and opportunities today where we've seen things that we know we can be better at.
01:13But there's also lots of things today that was on display at times.
01:17Maybe not for as long as we would like that we would be very happy about.
01:21That's the start of seasons and sometimes you need to rebuild a lot and the ball will fall to you at the right time.
01:26We needed a goal at a particular time in the game today and we didn't get it.
01:30And that left it very easy for Dundella to hang on and grind out for what they needed.
01:36Which was their win.
01:38But nothing too deep.
01:40Not going any further than what we are.
01:42The way we are today, scoreline wise, lots of things happened and happened well.
01:47And we focus on rebuilding for next week.
01:50You had a number of debutants out there today. Do you feel like their squad is floating well?
01:54Yeah, we don't like to come out after opening day.
01:59They talk about the amount of new players we have in.
02:02The age band of the players dropping considerably.
02:05Lots of players that have never experienced a championship game before.
02:08We've had that today and it's no excuse.
02:12But it's part of where we are at this moment in time.
02:14We had to rebuild after last season.
02:17We've done that and today's performance is part of the stepping stone to get us to where we need to be.
02:22And I have no doubt that we will get there.
02:24There's no problems, no panic in my point of view.
02:26Last question for me, you have a home game next week.
02:29Simple as getting back on the horse and going at it again and trying to pick up your first win of the season.
02:33We're back to show grounds.
02:35Bigger pitch.
02:37Flat surface.
02:39And a wee bit more space than what we would be used to.
02:44We obviously train there and we work there very well.
02:49Boys have 90 minutes of proper match time under their belt today.
02:52It's the first time this season.
02:54We're expecting a lot more from ourselves next Saturday.
02:59And listen, the opposition is tough week in, week out.
03:02But we're confident that after today's showing that we can build on that during the weekend and pick up a win next Saturday.