Kearney delighted with hat-trick of wins for Coleraine

Â©Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th November 2016
Danske Bank Premiership Coleraine v Ballinamallard at the Showgrounds
James McLaughlin celebrates after he scored Coleraine's second goal
Picture by Andrew Paton/Press Eye — Â©Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 19th November 2016 Danske Bank Premiership Coleraine v Ballinamallard at the Showgrounds James McLaughlin celebrates after he scored Coleraine's second goal Picture by Andrew Paton/Press Eye

Coleraine followed up a dominant display at The Oval last Saturday with a penalty shoot-out win against Crusaders in midweek, so it was fair to expect a few tired legs at the weekend.

But after a slow start when they conceded an early goal the Bannsiders showed their quality to run out 3-1 winners over Ballinamallard.

“It’s been a great week for the club, three wins in seven days and that’s all you can ask for,” said Kearney.

“But it has been tough, Wednesday took a lot out of the boys after a tough game at The Oval.

“Today was more mental than physical, and to be fair to the lads they kicked on in the second half and deserved to take the three points for a great end to the week.

“It was to be expected that we maybe weren’t straight on it at kick off and we conceded a sloppy goal.

“The lads were disappointed at half time to go in level, but I told them I was delighted with their performance.

“Coming off the back of a big game you always expect the first 45 minutes to be the hardest. Once you get through that and get the legs up and running again the second half is always that wee bit more straight forward.

“And so it proved, we were that wee bit sharper after the break.

For Ballinamallard it’s now seven games without a win, but boss Gavin Dykes believes there is plenty to be positive about.

“I thought we did well for large periods of the game,” said the Mallards boss after the game.

“We started well and took the lead, conceded a sloppy equaliser, but I thought we were the dominant team in the second half.

“But we gave away another poor goal, a miscommunication between the goalkeeper and the centre half.

“Just after that the keeper makes a great save to deny Johnny Lafferty, but that’s what happens when you’re down at the bottom, everything seems to go against you.

“But there’s a lot of positives for us to take. We’re creating chances, we just have to keep at and hopefully we’ll be okay.

“It has been a difficult couple of weeks, we conceded a late goal last week which deflated the boys but we got back at it again played well today, we just have to get back at it again this week.”