Four Dungannon Swifts players involved in a road traffic crash on the way to Saturday’s home Irish Premiership game against Ballymena United have been described as “all right” by their manager Rodney McAree.
Police received a report of a four-vehicle collision on Lisburn Road in Moira and the PSNI later said that it was “not believed that anyone was seriously injured”.
“We would appeal to anyone who may have been in the area at the time, who may have dashcam or other footage which could assist with our ongoing enquiries, to contact us on 101 quoting reference 608 24/08/24,” said the PSNI.
McAree confirmed after the game that Declan Dunne, James Knowles, Tom Maguire and Danny Wallace were the four players involved.
“Thankfully there is nothing serious with any of the four of them,” a relieved McAree told BBC Sport NI.
“It’s a phone call that when you get, you panic a little. It was Declan Dunne who phoned me, it was a video call, so he was able to show me the collision and the damage.
“There were obviously four players in the car, and he was able to show me all four. They looked a bit groggy but at that stage of the accident they were starting to get back on their feet and making sure they were doing the right thing. Thankfully they are all right.”
McAree said Dungannon wanted the game postponed but Ballymena declined.
“There is no law that says that the league can postpone it or that we have the rights to call it off. We did ask Ballymena if we could postpone and put it back on another date.
“I appreciate Ballymena have come a long distance and the Ballymena players come a long distance and they felt with the travelling support that they wanted the game to go ahead which is fair enough, everyone had their own decision to make.”
Kealan Dillon scored the only goal of the game in the 20th minute to secure Dungannon’s first victory of the season.
“It’s an ugly 1-0 win, we haven’t been great throughout the game,” McAree added.
“We dug in, we fought our corner and we got the three points and I’m delighted for the changing room.”