Gormley’s late show leaves Glens boss McFall in a rage
IT was looking like a frustrating day for Cliftonville. They had dominated the last 20 minutes but still the elusive goal wouldn’t come. But as long as Joe ‘The Goal’ Gormley is on the field, there is always time.
Sure enough, at the clock ticked into the 90th minute, the Reds’ record goalscorer was given enough space to have a shot on goal and, with perfect accuracy beat the dive of Elliott Morris to find the corner of the net and make it eight consecutive wins, in all competitions, at Solitude.
“You have to keep pushing and I always have a belief in myself that I will score and get a chance,” said Gormley after his 12th goal of the season. “I had a few half chances and took one. I seem to score the hardest ones, the other two (chances) were probably easier, but Elliott made a great save so I give credit to him, he managed to get up and fist it away.”
After picking up just five points from their first five Premiership games, the Reds have won six of their last eight and Gormley feels the team are not getting the credit they deserve.
“If you look at the league table we are starting to find a bit of form. When I joined Cliftonville I wanted to win stuff and there’s no reason why we can’t push on,” he said.
“Against Coleraine (last week) we dominated the full game and came away worthy winners and the same happened today. Hopefully that puts down a marker and other teams will start to fear us.”
His manager, Barry Gray, also believes he has the squad to win the league, even if some of his players are not so sure.
“Me believing that and the players believing that is where the gap lies,” said the boss. “It’s alright for me to say that but we need a bit of luck, a run of form. And that is our Achilles heel. We need consistency.
“The positives are that we haven’t been beaten by more than a goal, we have the fourth best defensive record in the league. You can’t eradicate individual mistakes. But when you show the CLIFTONVILLE: Brush; McGovern, Breen, Ives, Lavery; Maguire (Curran 58 mins), Curran, Catney, J Donnelly; R Donnelly 5 (Garrett 68 mins), Gormley 7. Unused subs: Harney, Garrett, Neeson, McDonald, McConnell, McMenamin.
GLENTORAN: Morris; Kerr, Ferrin, Crowe,
grit and determination like we showed today that’s what wins you games.”
Glentoran boss Ronnie McFall, Redman; Pepper, Herron, Gallagher, Kane (Davidson h/t 6); Allen, McDaid. Unused subs: Nelson, Garrett, Birney, Gordon, McCarthy, O’Neill.
Referee: Ian McNabb
Match rating: 7/10
Man of the match: Joe Gormley
however was raging that “a clear foul” was ignored in the buildup to the last-gasp goal which denied his side a point and left them in the bottom half of the Premiership table.
“You can’t come through players from behind and that’s exactly what happened. It should have been a free kick (to Glentoran) and a yellow card,” said McFall. Instead, it was Ross Redman who received two yellow cards in quick succession for his protests and will now miss Saturday’s game against Ballymena.
After what McFall described as the third such decision in as many matches, he went as far to suggest that the referees have an agenda against Glentoran.
“For us to be so consistently on the wrong end of decisions you have to ask is there something going on,” he blasted. “You can understand one match but consistently we have had bad decisions.
“All you want is a fair crack of the whip. It’s unbelievable some of the decisions we have had against us this season. If we had a fair bounce of the ball we would have sitting fourth.
“It’s got to the stage where you have to have a meeting and ask what is going on. The club have to take some action because everybody is suffering — backroom staff, directors, supporters and players.
“At times we were outstanding, today, we should have been two goals up at the start of second half, we’d two great chances. It was a complete injustice that we didn’t get something out of it.” COLERAINE boss Rodney McAree felt his side did more than enough to beat Institute on Saturday.
McAree did hold his hands up that the windy conditions did play a part in their victory as Darren McCauley’s first goal went straight in direct from a corner.
“I’m massively delighted with the three points, as it’s not an easy place to come,” said McAree.
“The surface suits Institute, the way Paddy (McLaughlin) wants them to play and they passed the ball extremely well in the first half, but we restricted them to very little in the first half.
“We have managed to capitalise on one fortunate goal and another a good finish and it has given us something to hold onto in the second half.
“Yes we conceded late on in the game and we made it a little bit more nervy for ourselves, but thankfully we saw the game out and have got a very, very well earned three points.”
His opposite number Paddy McLaughlin was disappointed that his side didn’t perform in the windy conditions.
“We came to get a result and you can’t be happy with taking a pat on the back for performance, after losing a game,” he insisted.
“Both goals were soft. The first came direct from a corner and that’s poor, while the other was s speculative effort, rather than hit like a cannon.
“The conditions have definitely had an impact on how the two of them have travelled into the net, so it’s disappointing and frustrating, but we have to take it on the chin and move on.
“We had the wind on our backs in the second half, so if it was going to have much of an advantage we should have taken it.
“We played well enough but we have hit the bar twice in the second half, which is a wee bit frustrating. But it’s a results business and we didn’t get the result.”