'I'll never walk away', vows under pressure Lynch

Derry City manager Tiernan Lynch has said he will "never walk away" from the job as the Candystripes' struggles continued.

Inconsistent performances and dropped points have left the club falling well short of early season predictions.

Derry City had been widely tipped to go one better than last season's second-place finish and mount a serious challenge for a first league title since 1997, but that ambition appears to have faded before the halfway stage of the campaign.

The Candystripes sit sixth in the League of Ireland Premier Division, 14 points adrift of leaders Shamrock Rovers and only four points above the relegation play-off spot.

Despite the poor run of form Lynch remains fully committed to the job, stressing he has no intention of walking away despite recent results.

"I've never walked away from anything in my life and I'll never walk away from this," Lynch told BBC Sport NI's Eric White.

"I came here for a reason and as far as I'm concerned, I'm going to be here.

"We have to keep believing in ourselves and hopefully start grinding out some results."

Lynch's side needed a late equaliser from Henry Rylah to salvage a point against bottom-of-the-table Waterford, who are still without a league win in 16 games this season.

That result leaves the club without a win in four games, with eight draws this season and just two victories in their last ten league outings, leaving them with four wins from 17 matches.

Tiernan Lynch knew that Henry Rylah's stoppage-time equaliser had spared his side further embarrassment against a team still without a win all season.

"One million percent, yeah. One million percent. There's no trying to hide away from anything in this," Lynch told BBC Sport NI.

"We didn't do the things that we were meant to do for longer periods. And we got ourselves into trouble by having to deal with, we called it, we let the game turn into a ding-dong. And the ding-dong suited Waterford, it didn't suit us."

The Derry boss insisted he accepts full responsibility for the team's current struggles and remains confident the squad has more to offer than recent results suggest.

"I ultimately always take responsibility. I'm the manager. And there's never a situation where I'll come out and try and throw players on their bus or blame players.

"I always take responsibility. And if that responsibility, if that's where we are, that's where we are. I have full faith in this team, Lynch continued.

"I definitely think that this team has way more potential than where we are right now.

"There's lots of things going on. It's not just quite as simple as saying this is a quick fix because it's not. And that's ultimately the bottom line."

Derry City now face three fixtures before the mid-season break, with home games against St Patrick's Athletic and Shelbourne before a trip to Dundalk as they look to get their season back on track.