Ruthless rue

Jim Magilton felt Cliftonville paid the price for a lack of ruthlessness in yesterday’s Sports Direct Premiership defeat to Larne.

Though broadly encouraged by his side’s display in unpredictable weather conditions at Inver Park, the Reds boss rued a failure to make promising chances count.

After Brian Healy was off target early on, the visitors began the second-half by striking the bar through Liam McStravick, by which time Matthew Lusty had already put Larne in front.

Conor Pepper’s dangerous pass across the face of goal found no takers, Joe Toole placed an attempt wide and Ryan Curran drew a save from Rohan Ferguson as Cliftonville took control of proceedings after the break.

A couple of goalmouth scrambles saw attempts charged down and Josh Kelly had a fierce strike blocked before some fine play from Joe Gormley saw him thread fellow substitute Adam Carroll in but, with the angle against him, he was unable to find the target.

The Reds were then punished for their inability to level when Larne sealed the points in the closing minutes; the linesman ruling that Andy Ryan’s close-range attempt had sneaked over the line prior to PJ Morrison clawing the ball away.

“Given the conditions and the importance of the game, I thought we applied ourselves terrifically well,” reflected Magilton.

“We played to the conditions and had a great early chance through Brian Healy. Had we taken that, it would have given us a platform and the confidence to go and play. We didn’t capitalise on that or the other chances we had.

“The goal we conceded in the first-half was really poor. It was poor decision-making all round and we didn’t make Larne work hard enough for the goal, which was a really sloppy one from our point of view.

“I actually thought we passed the ball better in the second-half, against the wind. We carved out really good opportunities and if you don’t take them, you leave the door open. Larne took their opportunities, they were more clinical in the box than we were.

“We had to score but we didn’t and Larne were always going to create opportunities.”