Gary Haveron clear Larne 'threw it away' after letting lead slip in Premiership defeat to Coleraine

The Inver Reds were seemingly cruising towards victory after James Simpson’s second strike put the hosts 2-0, but Coleraine then scored three unanswered goals in a 21-minute period to claim maximum points.

Larne had only conceded once in their opening three league matches of the season at Inver Park and held a perfect record prior to Friday’s loss.

The defeat leaves Haveron’s side trailing leaders Coleraine by 12 points, although they do have four games in hand due to European action and international call-ups.

"We threw it away,” Haveron told the club’s media channel. “We were 2-0 up, absolutely cruising, and we threw it away.

"It’s bitterly disappointing to be in such a good position and not defend those moments better...I’m not saying anything I haven’t told the players, I have told them to their faces, we just didn’t defend the situations well enough.

"When the ball goes wide you want your centre-halves inside the width of the goal to head balls clear, but they were trying to do midfielders jobs, the midfielders are letting them, so we’ve got to look at it and see how better organised we could have been in those moments.

"We didn’t need to panic. The keeper made a worldie save to stop the game going 3-0 and they’ve gone up the other end, got a free header and a follow up which has went through a crowd of people.

"Kevin (O’Hara) hit the crossbar, Leroy’s chance flashes across the goal, and if we get that goal at 2-2 back to 3-2, momentum swings our way and we probably see it out.

"To lose the game in the manner that we did, scoring two brilliant goals, it’s really poor from us.

"We have to look at ourselves, we have to take responsibility for how we defended those moments, which wasn’t good enough.

"We have to hold our hands up and need to do better in those moments.”

Larne were without Chris Gallagher after his appeal against a red card collected in last weekend’s 3-0 win over Crusaders was dismissed, while Matty Lusty and Sean Graham missed out through injury.

Haveron believes their absence had an impact, but insists his side should have won from their positive position.

"There’s a good deal of honesty about the boys and their intentions are good, but sometimes you’ve got to keep people accountable and tell them to do their jobs,” added Haveron. “It’s not always your responsibility to go and do it for them.

"I’m not making excuses but we go into the game with no Matty Lusty, no Sean Graham, no Cricky Gallagher, no Logan Wallace for cover at centre-back.

"Aaron Donnelly played tonight, was sick as a dog, he shouldn’t have played, but he put himself out there and put his body on the line.

"Missing a lot of big players in these big games...you just want your best team available, but that’s no excuse.

"The boys put themselves in a winning position, did incredibly well, but missing three or four really big players.

"We have to lick our wounds, really dig in and we’ve a massive game on Tuesday night against Linfield.”