Winning ugly pleases OK

COLERAINE boss Oran Kearney admitted the conditions didn’t allow for free flowing football but the most important thing was securing their name in the hat for the quarter-final stage of the Irish Cup…

The Bannsiders would net twice after the half-time whistle through Lyndon Kane and Josh Carson to defeat Portadown and set-up a mouth watering clash against Cliftonville in the next round.

Kearney remarked that cup competitions have been kind to the Stripes in recent years and they want that trend to continue.

“We are very pleased with the result as you know in Cup competitions, particularly in the Irish Cup, we’ve had good memories in the past and we are in the final of the League Cup,” he said.

“It’s a competition we would like to go far in again.

“It wasn’t ideal conditions today for either team, it was very tough for everybody here today but credit to our boys as we’ve stuck at it.

“It’s not the prettiest win we’ll ever have here but in the same stretch, nobody will remember that in a few weeks time and we are in the hat for the next round.”

Portadown created several chances before and after Kane’s opener, therefore it would come as no surprise to hear Kearney saying he was pleased to see Josh Carson rifle home an unstoppable effort three minutes from time to make it 950 goals under his management.

“The Cups always bring a different manner of a game where the shackles will come off teams,” he told Coleraine TV.

“If you go one or two down, they’re quick to throw on two or three strikers or do something that you maybe wouldn’t do in a league game because it’s all or nothing on the day.

“It can bring its troubles as Portadown had a little bit of pressure after that, but to be fair to our guys, they stood strong.

“I’m pleased with all 950 of them – but particularly that one at the end.

“It was nice to see it go in because particularly with it being one-nil all it takes is one bounce of the ball or the conditions or something else that could send it into extra-time.

“It was nice to get the second goal and it was a heck of a strike to cap it off.”

Coleraine continued to deploy a 3-5-2 formation for the visit of Paul Doolin’s side and Kearney acknowledged that his troops have to be flexible for all different challenges as they face Dungannon Swifts on Tuesday night.

“You have to be flexible as there are different teams that play different ways in this league,” he continued.

“It’s not about being robotic it’s about making sure that players are versatile and Josh probably is one of our most versatile players.

“He’s weighed in in a lot of different positions like a lot of our other players.

“We want to build again.

“That’s two wins and two clean sheets and ideally the key thing is that we want to try and go again on Tuesday night.”