Dergview boss Emmet Friars praises 'brave' Institute but admits draw 'felt like a loss'

​'Stute midfielder Evan Tweed was dismissed on 52 minutes with the visitors trailing to a Niall McGinley first half penalty and a close range Shane McMonagle goal but Kevin Deery's troops somehow managed to battle back to earn a point.

While frustrated his team couldn't hold out for a vital victory, Friars was glowing in his praise for his former Derry City teammate, Deery and his team who he believes are the best team he's faced in the NIFL Championship so far.

"It feels like a loss," reflected Friars afterwards. "I thought we controlled the game for large spells.

"'Stute are the best team we've played in the league, a really good side and Kevin is doing a fantastic job with them.

" It hurts because recently we've been giving away really poor goals in terms of bad decisions and individual errors and tonight was the same.

"'Stute have that quality where they're able to bring Sean McCarron off the bench at half-time. That's the difference. We'll just take the positives from it. It's a point for us. It should've been three, it's not but we can go to Dundela on Tuesday with confidence and a lot to play for. I'd imagine it was a fairly entertaining game for the neutral to watch.

"It was a very open game at the start and we looked a real threat on the break. Some of our players have been lacking that bit of confidence when they get into the right areas where they're looking for another pass instead of taking a shot.

"I spoke to them, told them to take their chances. I'd rather you're brave and miss chances than not take them.

“You could see our boys are giving everything they've got. We're going in the right direction, I don't care what anybody says. Those boys are giving me everything they've got and we're building slowly."

Friars felt 'Stute got what they deserved in the end having been bold with their substitutions when down to 10 men.

"Kevin was brave with his substitutions. They're brave with everything they do and that's Kevin's style, I know that I know Kevin very well, we're good friends and I knew he would do that.” From our point of view. We have a very young squad. We have a couple of senior players but other than that they're very young and learning harsh lessons.

"I told them they might go the rest of their career and not do that again - two up with seven or eight minutes to go against 10 men and throw it away.

" So they've got to learn but learn really quickly because we don't have time to be dropping two points like that."

“It doesn't get any easier for Dergview who are third from bottom as they travel to a Dundela team tonight who can regain leadership of the table.

"We'll go to Dundela and play the way we did tonight. We'll be brave and go after Dundela and we'll give it a go. It's a very difficult task but my boys have lots of character and lots of heart. “We'll feel that result for 24 hours but we'll pick ourselves up and go after it. There's no easy games in this league. Anybody can beat anybody which makes it even more difficult because the gap that's opened up for us that was a chance to close it down and put pressure on teams around us. We're not carrying very much luck at the minute but that's football."

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