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Better by half, says Paddy

Paddy McLaughlin admits there’s a certain irony in Cliftonville producing a noticeably improved second-half performance against Carrick Rangers yesterday but being unable to add to the two goals they scored during a “frustrating” first 45 minutes.

A Paul O’Neill chip and close-range Ryan Curran volley had the Reds in command at the interval but, despite stepping things up a gear after the break, there was no further addition to the scoreline – although the Gers enjoyed let-offs from a number of dangerous deliveries across the face of goal.

“We know how well organised and hard-working Carrick are,” said McLaughlin.

“It was very similar to the first game of the season here. It was frustrating. At I think we tried passes that maybe weren’t on, we got ourselves frustrated with the set-up of Carrick but you’ve got to deal with that by continuing to move the ball and when we moved the ball quicker, I thought we were a lot better.

“We were 2-0 up at half-time but I don’t think we were anywhere near great in the first-half. In the second-half, we moved the ball a lot quicker and we were a lot better for it without scoring but games are like that at times. It can be free-flowing football and sometimes you just have to grind it out and that’s probably what it was against a hard-working Carrick team.”

While he acknowledges it would have been nice to have kicked on from that half-time platform by boosting the goal difference further, McLaughlin says Cliftonville achieved their two top objectives from the contest.

“If you’re placing things in order, the result’s the important thing, a clean sheet’s the next one for me and then it’s goals for,” he added.

“We’ve got two out of the three so we’re happy enough and we’ve scored two goals on the day which was enough. You can’t have everything. Playing free-flowing football and scoring five or six would be brilliant if it was that easy but that’s not the way it goes, especially against a team like Carrick.

“Ryan Curran’s been scoring all season long and is up there with the leading scorers in the League, Joe Gormley scored in midweek and Paul O’Neill’s fit again and scoring goals so it’s a good time to have your front three firing and hopefully they can continue that.”