McAree: ‘It is probably two points dropped’

COLERAINE manager Rodney McAree was left frustrated that his side failed to register all three points against Glentoran yesterday afternoon..

The Bannsiders put in a below par first-half performance and fell behind when Robbie McDaid headed home after 25 minutes. There would be a further blow at half-time as striker Eoin Bradley received a straight red card for foul and abusive language towards the match official.

However the Stripes recovered after the break and grabbed an equaliser as Darren McCauley swept home his 6th goal of the season – but a valuable winner failed to arrive much to McAree’s frustration.

“When you’re 1-0 down at half time and you’re down to ten men you’d probably look at it as a point gained,” he said.

“Looking at our position at half time you would have taken a 1-1 draw.

“But when you look at our second half performance it’s probably two points dropped, which is frustrating.

“We were very good in the second half. We changed our shape and we asked the players to do something different, which is hugely encouraging because you hope the players take it on board and go out and deliver for you, and they certainly did.

“It worked for us, and we should have won it, and we’re now walking away frustrated we haven’t won a game of football.

“Glentoran obviously had us watched last week and seen how we played, and to be fair to them they asked us a different question in terms of setting up a little bit more defensively.

“If we’re going to be challenged in that respect then we have to come up with different ways to try and break them down.

“The sending off maybe helped us a little bit and gave us a bit of a gee up.

“We wanted to win the game and our character and attitude was second to none.”

McAree admits he had no complaints with Bradley’s dismissal but is concerned that another player will be absent from first-team duty.

“That side of the discipline is not good enough, it’s his second red card since I’ve come into the club, and that’s frustrating,” he added.

“I don’t think it’s a personal thing by any stretch of the imagination, because we get on well together.

“He got frustrated in the first half because Glentoran let us have the ball and we struggled to break them down.

“He’s leading the line by himself and there’s a level of frustration with it and he’s let his tongue run away with him.

“He’s said something to the referee and he’s took it as offensive and sent him off.

“The frustrating thing is we are already low on the ground in terms of numbers, and now we’re another man down.”

The boss questioned Evan Boyce’s decision not to award the Bannsiders a free-kick in a dangerous position late in the second-half as striker Jamie McGonigle looked to have been fouled when clean through on goal.

“I don’t like to point the finger at the referee but the biggest incident for me was when Jamie McGonigle clean through on goal, it’s on the last defender, he’s a centre forward who wants to score goals, if he goes down the chances of scoring from the free kick is probably slim, so why would he go down?

“If he hadn’t been clipped he was through on Elliott Morris, for me it’s a clear foul.

“That was a frustrating decision for me, and there was a couple of offside calls which were borderline as well.

“They talk about giving the advantage to the striker, but that hasn’t happened today.”