OK sets bare minimum task

ORAN Kearney believes everyone connected with the club owes the supporters a performance after Tuesday night’s defeat to Cliftonville…

The Bannsiders would put in a severely below-par second-half performance on Tuesday night as a hat-trick from Joe Gormley, added to a brace from Ben Wilson eased the Reds to a 5-0 win.

Kearney admitted he was “embarrassed” by what he watched on the touchline and offered his apologies to the supporters, who he rightfully claimed, expressed their anger at the full-time whistle.

“Everybody, players and all, rightly so, took the plaudits they deserved on Friday night and we made sure that, me included, everybody, that we went up there and took the abuse that we had to take – and rightfully so,” he said.

“It was abuse and it was correct and it was right from that point of view because there has to be accountability.

“There has to be accountability when you ask people from Coleraine to travel 120 mile round trip on a Friday night and then to follow that up 72 hours later to come here on a Tuesday night and support us.

“The least that we can do is go and put on a 90 minute performance and go and have effort and pride in the shirt and all of those things which, to be fair, we normally do.

“It’s very rare – I could count, not even on one hand probably, the times that I would have to come out and question those things.

“But for me, it’s black and white tonight and there’s no point standing here saying anything else.”

The Stripes welcome Crusaders to the Ballycastle Road tomorrow afternoon and Kearney knows his players can ill-afford to have a repeat performance as they did on Tuesday.

“We would absolutely need to get a reaction this weekend,” he added.

“You can’t predict anything in football and that’s the key thing but for us I’m embarrassed in simple terms and I feel a huge level of embarrassment and shame and everything that goes with it.

“I sincerely hope every single one of those players going home tonight have a real good look in the mirror and the attitude going into Saturday has to be that we go and deliver for 94 minutes full stop, no matter what.

“To me, that’s the bare minimum.”