Half termed

Jim Magilton admitted the damage was done in the first-half of Cliftonville’s 2-0 defeat to Larne at Inver Park last night.

An off-colour display was punished by two Matthew Lusty goals and, though the Reds were much improved after the interval, they were unable to scale the mountain they’d left themselves to climb.

“In the first-half, we got dominated and turned the ball over so often, especially early on in the game, and, in all honesty, Larne didn’t have to work particularly hard for their goals,” said Magilton.

“Coming here, you know that intensity is one thing you have to match and stand up to and, for 45 minutes, we were second best all over the pitch.

“We went to Windsor and didn’t play particularly well, we’ve come here and haven’t played particularly well.”

Some tactical tweaks at the interval added greater assertiveness to Cliftonville’s play, albeit they were almost punished on the breakaway on more than one occasion, but Magilton was nevertheless left to rue a match he reflected upon with few positives.

“In the second-half, you’ve no alternative other than pride to go out and actually play,” he added.

“The change of shape gave us a little bit more impetus going forward. We had a little bit more about us but the game was over after 45 minutes.

“There were moments of scares in the second-half too but we had to throw caution to the wind but overall, it’s a really disappointing night.

“These are the games where you test yourself and that’s two out of two where we actually haven’t showed up.”