Right of reply

Barry Gray credited his players for their response to falling behind in last night’s clash with Newry City.

After conceding a fourth minute strike to Darragh Noonan, Cliftonville claimed full control of proceedings by replying with three goals of their own before the interval – Rory Donnelly, Joe Gormley and Ryan Curran doing the damage.

Gray was particularly pleased given that the Reds’ failure to overcome a 1-0 deficit against the same opponents earlier in the season is still relatively fresh in the mind.

“We came to win and we won,” was his summary.

“Managers will always look at what we could have done and, though we missed some good chances, they were at times of the game when we didn’t really need to take them.

“I thought we started the game sloppily and we were disappointed with that. We gave Newry something to hold onto – keep in mind they beat us earlier in the season and were well good for it – but our reaction was pleasing.

“In the first 20 minutes, there was a wee bit of an edge on both sides, but the game filtered out and I’m delighted with that to a certain degree.

“We’d a patch of maybe 20 minutes where we turned the screw a wee bit and maybe it became a wee bit comfortable and we didn’t recover that in the second-half, but getting the win was what mattered and the players deserve credit for that.”