IRISH LEAGUE: Winger McIntyre insists he isn't a diver

The talented winger was controversially cautioned by referee Ian McNabb for simulation despite what looked like a robust challenge inside the box from Blues’ right-back Chris Casement.

“I’m not a diver and I definitely didn’t dive,” insisted McIntyre.

“Look it was a blatant foul and everybody saw it on the TV that it wasn’t a dive.

“It was poor refereeing and the fella even when the match was going on the fella who brought me down said himself it was a poor decision by the referee.”

Now that their Irish Cup adventure is over, the 20-year-old wants the Drumahoe men to get their promotional chase back on track.

Having lost their last two league games against Lurgan Celtic and PSNI, Stute have slipped into third spot seven points behind Ballyclare Comrades.

However McIntyre believes their season is far from over and wants to get back to winning ways against Knockbreda this weekend.

“I think after Saturday’s performance, even though we lost 2-0, I felt we put in a good performance to be fair even though the result didn’t show that,” he added.

“Linfield coming to Drumahoe was a big name playing us but all the boys were up for the match, but we need to be up for every match from now until the end of the season, starting with Knockbreda this weekend.

“Look we played Crusaders last year and now Linfield this season, those are the games you want to be playing in, you want to be playing the big boys every week and that’s what we are aiming for now.

“Hopefully we can get up into the Premiership next season.

“As I said after the Linfield performance the boys are now well up for this weekend’s game against Knockbreda and we’ll be aiming for the three points.”

This weekend’s home encounter against Knockbreda is the final home game of the season before the split and McIntyre wants the home supporters to have something to cheer about.

“I think it’s important as well to get the three points going into the split and if we can manage to do that, then hopefully that will kick-start us for the matches against sides in the top six against the better teams.

“We have to try and catch Ballyclare, we know it’s going to be hard but we have to make sure that we are up for every game we play now for the rest of the season.”