Kearney: ‘We still have the mentality to keep pushing’

COLERAINE boss Oran Kearney shared his views after Eoin Bradley’s late header earned the Bannsiders a 2-2 draw at The Oval…

In a dull first-half, the Stripes took the lead on 41 minutes when Brad Lyons headed in from Darren McCauley’s corner-kick. However a poor start after the break saw Kearney’s troops fall behind via goals from Curtis Allen and Peter McMahon.

Like many times last season, Coleraine don’t know when they are beaten and they found a late equaliser when Bradley powered home from McCauley’s cross to salvage a point.

“With 10 minutes to go and you’re behind, you would probably take a draw,” Kearney said.

“Credit to our boys for keeping going because we have been behind in games last season and the one thing I do know is that no matter what the performance is like, and our performance wasn’t great today, we still have that mentality to keep pushing and pushing.

“The pleasing aspect was that as abject as we were, that at least we kept going and a wee bit of brilliance from Darren and a great header from Skinner gets us away with a point.

“They’re human beings and I told them two things after the game. Number one that their standards have been that high that all of a sudden it’s a catastrophe with a performance like that and that’s brilliant as it shows us how far we have come as a group. The second thing is that I told the players that you are there to be shot at now and don’t take lightly the impact last season had on other clubs.”

The boss made a change uptop as Aaron Burns was handed a start following his match winning contribution against Cliftonville – but it was yet another substitute who came up with the goods late on.

“It wasn’t a difficult decision to change things up front,” Kearney added.

“Skinner said himself that if he had of came off the bench last week and scored two goals, he’d be expecting to start today.

“I think decisions like that are quite simple and we have a small squad but thankfully we have a bit of quality at our disposal.

“There are days that games can be won early, or you need impact substitutions and the last two weeks we have needed strong runners from the bench to get us points.”

Kearney was also left frustrated with the officials decision to not award the Stripes a penalty in the second-half as Brad Lyons went down inside the box.

“It was a stonewall penalty in my view,” he concluded.

“I think the most frustrating thing for us is that the linesman on that side seemed to be quite busy in getting all the little things and tiny bit of contact, and then he misses that big moment.

“Brad drives into the box, the defender anticipates him and gets infront, he then tries to be smart but Brad reads him and regains the ball back. As he gets the ball, the defender stands on Brad’s foot and with the weight on it he is unable to move.

“In real time it looked so obvious and a nailed on penalty.”