Paddy McLaughlin admits Cliftonville were left “shell shocked” and “devastated” after Saturday’s late collapse against Dungannon Swifts killed off their title challenge.
Two weeks after Dean Shiels’ side marched out of Solitude with a 2-0 win in the quarter-finals of the Irish Cup, they returned to throw a one-two combo that knocked the stuffing out of the Reds.
A 90th minute Padraig Lynch goal was followed by a Joseph Moore winner with the last kick of the game as the visitors can- celled out Ronan Hale’s opener on the hour mark, leaving McLaughlin strug- gling to pick up the pieces.
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“I’m a bit shell-shocked,” said the Derry man.
“A second goal would have put the game to bed and killed off any hope that Dungannon had but as the game edged towards the 90th minute I think we got a bit edgy and probably didn’t manage the game well enough.
“That probably ends our chances of winning the league so it’s important now that we take our hit and try to learn from it.
“We’ve got to go now for the rest of the season and finish as high up the table as we can because there’s obviously European business up for grabs, so that’ll be the target.”
McLaughlin added: “We had so many chances to make it 2-0, with three or four players, the chances weren’t all falling to the same player.
“Maybe we got complacent but every time we missed a chance, if you’re in the Dungannon camp, you’re thinking ‘we only need one chance and we can salvage something’.
“It’s a devastating day for the players and the supporters because there was so much riding on it but we’ll take the hit and move on.
“I’m sure there’ll be a lot of criticism coming our way over the next couple of days but we’re used to that now so we’ll take that on the chin.”
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction though, and Swifts boss Shiels wasn’t about to downplay the significance of Saturday’s victory for his struggling side.
He said: “I think it’s one of the best results for the club over the past couple of decades because of the circumstances.
“We had 10 players out, seven with an illness. We tried to get the game called off, we approached the league twice.
“We had players playing here half-cocked, not fit, playing out of position, and to come and win was just a magnificent effort.
“I’m really, really proud of the group.
“We had to pull seven players from the under- 20s, and that shows what the club is all about.”
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