MANAGER'S VERDICT: Stephen Baxter will 'never blame anybody for missing a penalty' after Carrick Rangers spurn two chances to defeat Loughgall
Carrick Rangers collected only their fourth Premiership clean sheet of the season as progression under Stephen Baxter continued with a stalemate against Loughgall, but they missed two prime opportunities to seal all three points from the penalty spot.
Here’s what boss Baxter had to say after the game:
ON THE MATCH
"It’s incredibly disappointing when you get two penalties and miss both. The game itself was an edgy one given the position of both teams.
"Loughgall probably more so because they are the bottom team, away from home and fighting for their lives. The ball was just coming down your neck for the first 45 minutes and that didn’t please me because we were dragged in to trying and defend that ball.
"You’re dragged into a war nearly and I said to the team at half-time ‘we’ve been getting away from what we’ve done well in the last few weeks, we need to pass the ball better’.
"I thought we passed it better in the second half, got on the ball, got into better positions and were starting to turn the screw a little bit. There was a lovely through ball that created the second penalty.
"You get those two big chances and you have to tuck one away, but we didn’t do it. The disappointment will be for those players that took the penalties...they’re going home and going on their Christmas night out and I know how I felt when I was a player.
"You’re doing your talk in there after the game and they’ve buried their head in their knees. It’s never nice to miss a penalty in a game of this magnitude, but I never blame anybody for missing a penalty kick.
"You’re standing up there in a pressurised situation and you have to have courage to take it. If you miss it, you miss it.
"I’ve been in penalty shoot-outs that have taken us out of semi-final or finals of Irish Cups and all sorts of things. That’s the luck of the draw – we only have a point when we feel we should have all three. That’s life and we’ll move on from it.”
ON THE PENALTIES
"Danny Gibson was confident for the second one. I watched him take a load of penalties only a week or two ago and they were all excellent, so he was confident.
“At Seaview we had six or seven people who were confident in taking penalties. There’s no reflection. Clubs sometimes have someone who wants to take penalties but you should have four or five that want the ball.
"We can all be wise after the event. Credit goes to Nathan Gartside because he makes two great saves and two great decisions going either side.”
ON HEART SHOWN BY BOTH SIDES IN FIESTY AFFAIR
"It was a well-fought game no doubt. For me, Joe Crowe was man of the match here today. There were three clearances he made getting up off the deck in the last 10 minutes, tackles when they’d broken in, and he broke up the pitch with the ball.
"I thought he was magnificent. He was brilliant, as were the others, but if you wanted one then he was man of the match by a distance.
"I thought it was a horrible game because the ball was in the air so much, which I don’t like. There has to be a rhythm to your game and getting into good space.
"It was a hard-fought game, like I think all games are. I’ve been back in this eight weeks and every single game we’ve played has been competitive.
"There’s only two we’ve been beaten in and we’ve been competitive in all the games. There’s very little between the teams top to bottom and that gives you an indication to where this league is right now.”