Danske Bank Premiership: Cliftonville 1 Coleraine 0
CLIFTONVILLE manager Paddy McLaughlin hopes Saturday’s win over Coleraine – their first in the league this season over a fellow top-four side – will keep the critics quiet for a week or two.
Conor McMenamin scored the only goal of an absorbing encounter at Solitude, with the only downside being an ankle injury to Reds forward Ruaidhrí Donnelly. Both sides had chances to win the game but, with home ’keeper Richard Brush in inspired form, Cliftonville were able to keep a clean sheet until McMenamin popped up to head home a late winner.
Cliftonville are now second in the Irish League table, two points behind Linfield, and following recent defeats to the Blues and Glentoran, McLaughlin was happy to get a monkey off his back.
“Outside of the changing room, people were probably criticising us for not picking up enough points from teams in and around us, which is a wee bit unfair because we haven’t been well beat, there hasn’t been anything in the games, we’ve always been beat by the odd goal,” the Reds boss said.
“Any games we’ve lost we could easily have won them, so I think anybody who was criticising the boys was a wee bit unfair, but hopefully that will keep them quiet for a couple of weeks.
“We’ve beat Glentoran, we’ve beat Coleraine, we’ve beat Ballymena, all good sides, all sides challenging at the top end of the table. We were unlucky against Crusaders, we were unlucky against Linfield, we’ve beat Larne. I don’t know where the criticism’s coming from, but hopefully beating Coleraine will put it to bed.
“We can’t be too concerned about the outside world because you’re always going to get it, every team gets it and every player and manager and coach will get it, no matter what level they’re playing or coaching at. It’s part of the game, it’s part of your job, you’ve just got to deal with it and fair play to our boys, they’ve dealt with it and proved a few people wrong.
“The physical side of the game yesterday, our boys were excellent at it, which hasn’t been the case all the time. Glentoran, a few weeks ago, outmuscled us in the game and our boys stood up to that physical challenge yesterday, which was excellent. We’ve learnt a harsh lesson from the Glentoran game and we proved that yesterday.”
As for the injury to forward Donnelly, who has netted seven league goals so far this season, McLaughlin was resigned to the prospect of losing him for at least the busy Christmas period, which begins with the trip to Crusaders on St Stephen’s Day.
“It definitely doesn’t look good,” the Derry man added.
“He’s been to the hospital, we haven’t had all the results back, but unfortunately we might have to do without Ruaidhrí for a couple of weeks. We’re not sure the extent of the damage at the minute, but it looks like he might have done his ligaments.
“It looks like we’re going have to do without, which is unfortunate because he’s been excellent for us the last couple of games and he’s going to be a big loss for us, but you’ve got to trust your squad to step in when the opportunity comes around. We’ve got a good squad of young players coming through and this will open up the opportunity now for someone to come in and try to stake their claim to stay in the team.”
