Kevin Haynes delighted as Berwick Rangers battle 'biblical' conditions to hammer Ashington

Berwick Rangers battled their way through a “biblical” downpour and stormy conditions to record an impressive 5-0 friendly win over Ashington on Saturday afternoon - much to the delight of manager Kevin Haynes.

The Borderers continued their stellar start to preseason with a commanding victory at Shielfield Park, with goals from Michael Mbewe, Josh O’Connor, and Danny Handling, as well as a brace from Greg Binnie, ultimately proving too much for their visitors.

And speaking after the final whistle, Haynes was quick to praise his side for their sublime display in difficult conditions. He said: “That was biblical. I've never seen rain like that, while being involved in a football game. It was really, really heavy... You know, I think that friendly today was probably as close to perfect as you're going to get.

“I criticised the players at half-time - my only criticism at half-time is we hadn't scored enough goals for the chances that we created .I think we had probably five or six proper good chances. I thought they [Rangers] were excellent, I really did think they were excellent - and to get a clean sheet... I thought we were still going at the end, the fitness levels looked good, our shape was good, I've nothing that I can complain about today.”

On what another dominant display means for his side’s confidence levels, Haynes continued: “It's maybe not so much keeping them grounded - we want to have a self-belief in ourselves and we want to believe that we can do that every Saturday. We need to instil that into the players. I think we've demonstrated that over the course of my time here, and probably since the turn of the year.

“I think the biggest positive that we've done is kept the majority of that squad together. I think we can get more out of the squad. Ben McCrystal played at centre-half today and I thought he was outstanding, I thought he was different class. I think we can get more out of the squad. They'll stick together - they need to believe that they're going to win multiple games and score multiple goals and we'll see where that takes us.”