FOOTBALL: Coleraine boss Oran Kearney happy with display in win at Warrepoint

Irish Premiership leaders Coleraine maintained their six-point advantage over Crusaders at the top of the table by winning 2-0 away to Warrenpoint.
Coleraine's Ian ParkhillColeraine's Ian Parkhill
Coleraine's Ian Parkhill

Ian Parkhill gave the Bannsiders the lead with a 48th-minute deflected shot and Darren McCauley netted the second in stoppage-time.

Coleraine boss Oran Kearney was delighted to get three points from what he had identified as a tough fixture.

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“It was everything we knew it was going to be. Warrenpoint are on their best run of form, they have had a savage run of fixtures but they got a great result last week at Linfield.

“We were under no illusions coming here tonight, we knew exactly how tough it was going to be. We’re delighted to pick up the three points.

“There’s definitely a deflection on Ian Parkhill’s shot for the opening goal, which I’ll take.

“He took the gamble by shooting so he deserves the luck of the deflection.

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“When you come to places like here you don’t worry how the goal comes, and certainly in a few weeks time no-one will remember how it went in.

“We started the second half well and the goal came at a good time. Ideally we would have liked to have grabbed a second soon after, we had a couple of good chances, Josh Carson had one cleared off the line.

“It was a bit like last week though we had to wait a while to get the second.

“ We got a wee bit of luck with the shot from Darren Murray which hit the post, but you need that on nights like tonight.

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“Compared to recent weeks we weren’t at our free flowing best, but with the travel on a Friday night after a long week of work I wasn’t expecting a beautiful performance tonight.

“The key thing is there are lots of different ways to win matches and pick up points.

“Tonight we knew it would be more of the scrapping tendencies that would be needed rather than the free flowing football.