Homing in

Paddy McLaughlin says Cliftonville’s priority in the closing weeks of the Danske Bank Premiership season was to ensure home advantage in the European Play-Off semi-finals – but admits he and his players were disappointed not to seal the deal with a win over Crusaders last night.

The point garnered from the 1-1 draw, which saw Daire O’Connor’s early effort cancelled out by a 94th minute leveller from David Cushley, means Solitude will host next Tuesday’s Play-Off battle between the same sides, when Cliftonville will bid for their first North Belfast Derby victory of the season.

Reflecting on the Crues’ rescuing a last-gasp draw for the third meeting in succession, McLaughlin said: “We’re disappointed with the result because I think we were a lot better than Crusaders were on the night, especially in the first-half.

“Their keeper’s pulled off a couple of great saves late in the game to stop it going 2-0. If the game goes 2-0, the game’s over, so we’ve got to be more clinical and more ruthless when we get chances to put games to bed. Over the course of the season, there’ve been a few times when we’ve let teams off the hook and it’s come back to haunt us.

“That’s the big disappointment, especially with our fans back. Anybody that was here will have seen a performance of hard work and intensity but the only thing that was missing was that second goal to kill it off.”

Though the Reds have a Premiership encounter with Linfield to complete the League season on Saturday, next Tuesday’s clash with the Crues is clearly of greater significance and McLaughlin is pleased that the game will be at Solitude.

“It was important we finished above Crusaders to get home advantage in the European Play-Off,” he added.

“We only needed a draw to get that and, while we deserved to win, we got the point we needed. It’s obviously disappointing we didn’t get all three but the players should take confidence from how they played and the chances they created, the only thing we need to make sure of is putting one of them away to make it 2-0.”