No more gifts – OK

COLERAINE boss Oran Kearney warned that his side can ill-afford to have a poor start as they face Glentoran this evening…

The Bannsiders would suffer a defeat to Crusaders on Tuesday night as they found themselves 2-0 down inside the opening 14 minutes.

With that in mind, Kearney knows his troops will have to be focussed not to give too much away against tonight’s opponents who have only conceded four league goals all season.

“They’ve been flying at the top of the league,” he acknowledged.

“They have a huge amount of firepower and they’ve probably been the in-form team in the league and there’s no problem saying that.

“We can’t go out and gift what we gave Crusaders and we can’t go out with the same start.

“It’s so important that we go out and get that right.”

When questioned about the manner of the defeat on Tuesday night, Kearney believes poor defending in moments was to blame for the loss.

“I felt we made big strides in the last week before the Crusaders game,” he added.

“We looked like we were starting to gain momentum, particularly with the manner of the win against Carrick Rangers, and we just didn’t look like conceding goals.

“The whole point tonight was to get out to a really good start, particularly off the back of the experience Crusaders had against Larne, but we turned around and shot ourselves in the foot.

“I couldn’t fault the players in the second-half when we finally settled and got a grip of the game but that’s twice we’ve fallen 2-0 behind early this season and we let them off the hook with two early goals.

“We defended well after we conceded the two goals and you’re just down to moments and flashes and it’s just not good enough in moments.”