We deserved more: Paddy

Paddy McLaughlin believes Cliftonville deserved something for their efforts against Ballymena United yesterday but insists that a first defeat of the season will not derail his side.

The Reds carved out good scoring chances in the first-half either side of Kenny Kane’s strike, while the second period delivered almost relentless one-way traffic that saw Rory Hale, Ryan Curran, Ronan Doherty, Jamie McDonagh, Joe Gormley and Chris Curran all go close to levelling.

McLaughlin feels an equaliser could well have provided the platform for the visitors to go on and win the game but was philosophical in his reflections on a first loss in almost five months.

“It’s unfortunate when any good run comes to an end and ours came to an end here, but it could come to an end against any team in this division,” he said.

“Everybody is good enough to beat anybody on their day and Ballymena were very good in the first-half and I thought we were superb in the second and created five or six goal opportunities.

“We just didn’t have enough quality in the final third to take those opportunities and I think if we had equalised, we could have won it.

“We’re really disappointed but losing the unbeaten run isn’t the end of the world. We were going to lose to somebody at some stage because the League is so competitive, but we’re just disappointed in the manner we lost it having dominated the second-half.”

McLaughlin also revealed that, while Levi Ives is facing up to another spell on the sidelines, the defender’s injury is not as serious as first feared.

“Levi should be OK,” he explained.

“I don’t think the damage to his ankle ligaments is as bad as we thought and hopefully he can be back in the next two or three weeks.

“Normally, an ankle ligament injury can be six to eight weeks, but the signs are he won’t be out too long out which is great news because he has been great for us.”