Quality control

Paddy McLaughlin admitted that DAC’s quality shone through as Cliftonville were eliminated from the Europa Conference League last night.

Despite the 3-0 scoreline – labelled “harsh” by the Manager – ultimately earning the Slovakian Fortuna Liga outfit a 5-1 aggregate success, McLaughlin was proud of his players’ efforts throughout the first qualifying round tie.

“Over the course of the two games, I thought we were excellent and played a lot of good stuff,” he said.

“Out in Slovakia last week, we were very good and kept the tie alive. It was the same at Solitude, probably right up until their second goal.

“We knew we had to score twice no matter what happened and even when we went behind, that was still the case if we wanted to go through.

“At 1-0 down at half-time, we knew it was important that we scored the first goal and, just as we’d done in the first-half, we stated the second-half really well, we created a couple of chances and I think their first shot in anger in the second-half was the second goal and that was game over.”

McLaughlin acknowedged there was little else that could be done about that 65th strike – a wonderful long-range blast by Nikola Krstovic which arguably ranks as the finest goal scored at Solitude on a European night – but to stand back and admire its quality, even if it did signal the beginning of the end for Cliftonville’s comeback hopes.

“It was a killer blow and you can see why the big boy Krstovic is a Montenegro international – touch, bang, top corner before anybody knew what had happened,” added McLaughlin.

“The ability to do that after winning what looked like a fifty-fifty tackle, he maybe gets a lucky break of the ball but gets a touch, gets it out of his feet and put it in the corner from 25 yards. You can’t say anything else but ‘what a strike’ – that was the killer blow because it was game over then.

“The third goal’s harsh and the scoreline’s a bit harsh on our boys because of how hard they worked and how well they played.

“The bigger picture is we went up against a top side – the toughest side we could have possibly got from our pot – and we gave it everything. In the first leg, I thought we were excellent and, for large parts of the second game, I thought we were excellent but the gulf in class and everything else that goes along with living a full-time lifestyle and the set-up that they have came to the fore in the end.”