PACKIE Mailey finally feels himself again – but it hasn’t been an easy road.
From the final game of last season, way back in October, the Convoy man didn’t kick a competitive ball in anger until his comeback game in May against Longford Town in the FAI Cup.
By his own admission, he struggled for form in the early days, but on Friday night he was back somewhere closely resembling the player who has won the Harps fans’ Player of the Year award three times.
Mailey netted Harps’ first goal in the 2-0 win over Cobh Ramblers.
“It wasn’t even the goal tonight, but defensively he was very good and won all of his headers,” said the Harps manager, Ollie Horgan, about the centre-back’s performance.
“When Packie came back, he hadn’t a huge amount of work done, but Mickey McGlynn, to be fair to him, took him a lot of the time.
“He really wasn’t match fit and hadn’t kicked a ball since we played Longford in the very last game of last season.”
With Keith Cowan getting married this week – he weds Toni Kelly in Italy – Mailey’s return to form couldn’t have been timelier.
His defensive display and the goal helped Harps record a third win in a row, that trio of results coming after the Ballybofey side had hit something of a roadblock.
Although riding high again at the top of the table, Mailey insists Harps must keep grounded.
“The result is the most important thing,” the defender said.
“It mightn’t have been the prettiest, but it keeps the run going and it’s three points. We’ll look to improve on where we went wrong and take those things into next week.
“The main goal is to win, whether it’s by one goal or five goals. That keeps the confidence high in the camp. There are plenty of games to go yet.
“We’re just going to take it one game at a time and we won’t get carried away.”
Mailey, who had a spell at Hibernian as a teenager, has hailed the influence of goalkeeper Ciaran Gallagher, who saved a penalty from Stephen Kenny in the first half of Friday’s win.
He said: “Ciaran, since he’s come in, has set the standards high. He’s a good goalkeeper, he’s a good lad and he works hard.
“We got the wee bit of luck that might have evaded us in previous years and Ciaran then pulled off a great save from the penalty.”
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