Newry City boss Darren Mullen spoke to us after his side drew 2-2 at home to H&W Welders.
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00:00Clarence, 2-0 draw, how do you reflect on that game?
00:04Probably a fair enough result at the end. Disappointing obviously not to see it out
00:09when you're 1-0 up and then 2-1. But I think overall probably the draw was a fair enough
00:13result. It's a good test of character for the lads. Two or four weeks ago, can they
00:19see it out? Maybe not. We've tried to lift the spirits and get them to work that wee
00:25bit harder. I think today you could see that, especially towards the end of the game.
00:28Probably a change of formation, 3-4-3 playing at wing-backs. How do you feel like that worked?
00:33It was actually 3-5-2.
00:353-5-2, ok. Whatever you want to call it.
00:37Look, it's just a numbers game. It ends up a different thing. We tried something different
00:43to be honest. Last week I thought we were left exposed in certain areas. When you're
00:47making a mistake, there were too many gaps. So we just tried something different. I thought
00:51we could have been a wee bit better in terms of going forward in that shape. But we just
00:56needed to be solid. It's good for the lads that we can be flexible. That could well change
01:00next week. Back to a flat back four, we just thought today it suited us better. I thought
01:06we managed it well. Probably the oldest back down in the Irish League this week in terms
01:10of the back three. But I thought the lads were very good.
01:12That's good. Did you have that with you have players like Ford and Stephen Ball who can
01:15stretch and play wide and get balls in the backs?
01:17Yeah, we switched that towards the end of the game last week in the Ballyclare game.
01:23It wasn't a 3-1 game. We created a lot of chances, just didn't take them. Again, today
01:27you're looking at a game we should have been 2-0 up in the first five minutes. You've not
01:30taken chances and you're hoping that doesn't come back to bite you. But thankfully Ryan
01:35got us two goals.
01:36And of course towards the end they were putting a bit of pressure on Wilders. Some big saves
01:40from Conor Mitchell. Were you happy with his contribution?
01:42Yeah, it did well. Mitch did well. A wee bit of a blip last week. But he's been terrific
01:47since they've come in. And they all did. Look, this is a tough league. Ireland will
01:54be one of the favourites. They're up there. We're down the bottom of it and fighting.
01:58We shouldn't be but we are. So yeah, I think it's a good point for us. It gives us a wee
02:03bit of a platform now to push on. That's five games in now and with two games at home we're
02:08unbeaten. What we wanted to do when we came into the start was to make sure we weren't
02:11getting beaten at home and that's 2-2. We haven't unbeaten.
02:14And in terms of just the squad depth, you're obviously still missing a couple of players.
02:17Do you see players coming back in in the next few weeks?
02:20It's difficult because we lost Fra in the warm-up. We always have maybe one back and
02:26one out. So yeah, we're still missing players, lads, to come back in. At this stage you're
02:31looking as well into the transfer window in January to try and get players in. So yeah,
02:37I'd like to have a full squad at the minute but it is what it is. I'll not grumble about
02:41it. Everybody's the same. We just need to deal with what we have and thankfully the
02:44lads today have played and stuck up.