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By Jonathan Brown SAINTFIELD United manager James Beattie is hoping his side’s strong dressing room spirit can help drive them forward this season as they look to improve on last year’s seventh-place finish in Division 1C of the Amateur League. The Saints have made a promising start to the campaign, following up a 6-0 victory over Ballywalter Rec with an 8-0 win against Orangefield before suffering a 2-0 defeat to Mid-Ulster Intermediate A side Hanover on Saturday in the first round of the Irish Cup. Beattie, who took over from Craig Bowman and Andrew Gourley in October 2024, is keen to move on from what he described as last season’s “underwhelming and inconsistent” campaign, which was heavily affected by injuries to first-choice goalkeeper Ben Thompson and club captain Aaron Milligan. “Last season was relatively underwhelming and inconsistent; we didn’t push on as much as we probably should have. “I don’t like to give excuses, but our first-team goalkeeper missed 13 games and our captain missed a long period. We really struggled with a consistent squad. “When I took over at Saintfield, we had, at best, 12 or 13 first-team players capable of making an impact. “We grew that squad last year, but we were met with unbelievable injury and availability issues.” Former Comber Star and Civil Service manager Beattie helped steer the Saints away from relegation trouble during his first season at the club in 2024/25 before guiding them to a seventh-place finish last term. He has moved to strengthen his squad over the summer, bringing in goalkeeper Joel Bunting from Ballywalter to replace Thompson, along with midfielder Sam Lennon, winger Ross Murray and striker Ryan Bradley. Centre-half Alex McClenaghan has also returned to the club following a period away on work placement. “Joel has been superb in pre-season, we’re delighted to have him. “The other additions have all been on the attacking front because one of the issues we had last season was scoring goals, so we wanted to add depth in that area. “We’re happy with those additions and the key thing for me was building a squad because we didn’t have anywhere near enough squad depth,” Beattie explained. Mourne Observer Down Recorder digital edition