Crumlin Star 0
athfriland 1
PAUL Trainor admits Crumlin Star’s opening day defeat to Rathfriland stings — but has promised the Premier Division champions a bruising battle in this year’s race for honours.
The Ardoyne men gave as good as they got at The Cricky on Saturday, trading blows with the visitors before falling to a “sucker punch” at the death when Adam Neale headed in an injury-time winner.
For the first time in years, Star are no longer the standard-bearers of the Amateur League, that honour now lies with the Whites who won a league and Intermediate Cup double last season — only a Border Cup final defeat denying them a treble.
Indeed, the Mourne men wrapped up their maiden top flight title with a stirring win at the home of the Star last May, dethroning the three-in-a row champs on their own backyard.
But Trainor’s not so sure about talk of a power shift, insisting there was nothing between the two teams save, perhaps, for matchday sharpness, with Ally Wilson’s men edging that department after a gruelling pre-season which included friendlies against higher opposition.
“Coming away yesterday, I thought we played really, really well against probably the best side in the league at the present minute,” said Trainor, now into his fifth season at the helm of Star.
“Look, I’m not going soft in my aul age, I still hate getting beat but we switched off for a couple of minutes at the end, gave them a free-kick, they put it in the box and that was it.
“I just thought it was through tiredness; where Rathfriland with their own ground have played all top quality teams in pre-season — the Glens and Dundela and your Ballymacashes and all these teams — we’ve had to go away to teams who are maybe not just as strong.
“Here, we got caught with a sucker punch, but we played really, really well, we took a lot of positives from the game and hopefully we can get back on our horse on Wednesday again with a tough game away to Derriaghy.”
With Rathfriland having ended Star’s supremacy in the Amateur League, the challenge for Trainor’s team is clear — but he has no doubts about either the quality in the ranks or the fire in their bellies.
“Don’t be worrying, we’ll be pushing Rathfriland all the way,” added the Star chief, who has brought his old mate, former Cliftonville and Glentoran boss Eddie Patterson in alongside him this year.
“I was really pleased with our pre-season, defensively we have tightened up, and we’ve got a goalscorer in Kevin Lynch who has been a big plus, and I’ve added one or two kids as well who were really good yesterday, though one of the young lads, Gerard Maguire, was brought to hospital with about 10 minutes to go, hopefully it’s not a serious injury.
“We had chances to win the game yesterday, last year we couldn’t get near them but listen, we’ll be there.
“It’s going to be a long season and we’ll be there at the end of it I’ve no doubt about that.”
Trainor is excited about what new signing Lynch brings to his side. Goals have never been a problem for Star, with James Doyle and Stephen Smyth bagging more than 20 goals apiece last year, while Dee Fearon was in double figures before his Christmas switch to Dundela and veteran forward Miguel Chines still knows where the net is.
But for Trainor, ex-Belfast Celtic frontman Lynch raises the level of his forwards still more.
“Kevin always sort of way threatened to come, he’s good friends with the McNeills (brothers Joe, Aidan and Ciaran) so he’ll be a real plus for us, I expect him to score a lot of goals for us over the course of the season.”
