BetMcLean League Cup final: Cliftonville 4 Coleraine 3 (aet)
YOU can’t coach desire. What this Cliftonville team has cannot be found in any coaching manual. This intangible, almost mystical quality resides deep in a player’s soul and only reveals itself when the big occasion asks the question: what do you have?
Trailing 2-0 after 63 minutes and playing well within themselves, Paddy McLaughlin’s Reds players bared their souls and somehow wrestled the League Cup from Coleraine’s stubborn grip to score a remarkable extra-time victory.
From the 63rd minute onwards, the north Belfast men were truly magnificent. These were career-defining minutes for each man who wore the blood-red jersey of Cliftonville.
They were epic in every sense.
Matthew Shevlin and Stephen Lowry scored brilliant goals for the Bannsiders in the 58th and 63rd minutes, respectively before substitutes Joe Gormley and Paul O’Neill ripped up the script to fire home in the 74th and 91st minutes to send their opponents reeling.
In extra-time and with Coleraine soon reduced to 10 men after James McLaughlin’s rush of blood, the game was firmly in Cliftonville’s grasp.
Paul O’Neill put the Reds in front in the 104th minute, Gormley tapped home the insurance strike three minutes later to make it 4-2 before Curtis Allen grabbed a consolation goal for Coleraine on the stroke of full-time.
Up to that fateful 63rd minute, Coleraine’s masterplan was “going perfectly”, said Bannsiders boss Oran Kearney.
“When we scored our second you expected three or four strikers being thrown on,” said Kearney. “We’re built for that.
“Cliftonville are a very technical side. Generally, they go for one-twos but at that stage it was the kitchen sink and just lobbing balls into the box, which is exactly what I wanted. I was thinking ‘happy days because we’ll eat all this up.’ It was just really frustrating the way we conceded. It turned a magnificent performance up until that point into the opposite.”
Kearney hadn’t watched McLaughlin’s red card back when he joined reporters in the press conference room afterwards but it was an unforgiveable act of petulance from the big striker.
After a kerfuffle near the touch-line involving several players from each team, McLaughlin hit out at Cliftonville’s Chris Curran and referee Andrew Davey rightly flashed a red card in the substitute’s direction, with Coleraine assistant William Murphy joining him for an early bath after protesting too strongly.
Chris Curran explained: “James and me were grappling with each other but he seemed to take it a step too far. I had a hold of his jersey but I didn’t think he was going to strike me. I thought it was a moment of madness…”
Curran was one of three second-half substitutes that shifted the momentum of this memorable decider.
The Cavan man dug deep, kept it simple, and established much-needed rhythm in Cliftonville’s play after he was introduced after 53 minutes.
Gormley and O’Neill followed and were also outstanding. Given how poorly they’d played, there didn’t seem to be a way back into this final for the Reds after Shevlin was put through by Lyndon Kane to open the scoring on 58 minutes.
Five minutes later, Cliftonville looked dead and gone when the brilliant Stephen Lowry reacted quickest to a loose ball resulting from Jamie Glackin’s corner-kick, lashing the ball home with a sweet left foot strike.
What unfolded was one of the great comebacks in recent times. With 16 minutes of normal time remaining, Ryan Curran, who was perpetual motion all afternoon, found Gormley with a delightful cross and the Ardoyne man placed his header wide of Gareth Deane’s despairing dive to breathe life into the Red Army.
And as the game entered stoppage-time, the ball bobbled around the Coleraine six-yard box, Gormley’s header came back off the crossbar and O’Neill was on hand to stab the ball home to send this crazy final into two periods of extra-time.
Once McLaughlin was dismissed so too were Coleraine’s chances of rescuing the game – or even forcing it to penalties.
Just on the cusp of half-time of extra-time, Chris Gallagher sent Chris Curran down the side of the Coleraine defence and his pull-back was finished supremely by O’Neill.
The 6,000 Reds fans went ballistic. Their team had one hand on the cup – and they soon made it two hands when Gormley tapped home Ryan Curran’s low cross after O’Neill did brilliantly to win back possession.
Curtis Allen beat the otherwise flawless Luke McNicholas at his near-post in the 120th minute, but time had beaten Coleraine.
Afterwards, Paddy McLaughlin praised the resilience of his players and in particular the three substitutes Curran, Gormley and O’Neill who each made sensational impacts.
“When it was 2-0 I thought is this going to be a sad story,” the Reds boss said.
“But Joe scores. He blinks and he’s gone, and Paul [O’Neill] worked his socks off and scores two goals. It was brilliant for the team because we needed that. We needed the captain [Curran] coming on and the influence that he has over the team.
“The three of them were superb, they flipped the game on its head. The team was on their knees and they needed them badly. It’s just a brilliant feeling.”
The Derryman praised the Red Army for being the “best fans in the country” and that they will have a huge role to play as his side chase an unlikely treble with the league title and Irish Cup still up for grabs.
For now, though, this was a victory that deserved to be savoured by everyone connected with Cliftonville Football Club.
The Currans, Jonny Addis, 'Cricky' Gallagher, O'Neill, Joe 'the Goal' - take a bow.
It was one of those nights where the 'social' never slept.
Cliftonville: L McNicholas, K Lowe, L Ives, J Addis, L Turner, C Gallagher, R Doherty (P O’Neill 70) , R Hale (C Curran 53), D Kearns ( J Gormley 61), R Curran, J McDonagh(C Coates 113) Subs not used: R McKenna, C McDermott, A Donnelly
Coleraine: G Deane, L Kane, R Brown, S O’Donnell, J Carson, A Traynor (C Allen 106), S Lowry, P Kelly, C McKendry (R Wilson 72), M Shevlin (E Bradley 88), J Glackin (J McLaughlin 78) Subs not used: M Gallagher, A Mullan, A Jarvis
Referee: A Davey
