Mick McDermott puts focus on Glentoran players’ positives over Irish Cup controversy

On an afternoon which featured three red cards for Crusaders and the decision by fourth official Raymond Crangle to confirm to referee Andrew Davey a penalty call which led to Robbie McDaid’s magic moment from the spot, McDermott instead was keen to focus on the end product as a fitting reward.

“There are no second chances in a cup tie so it’s nice to get through and I thought we deserved the result,” said McDermott after the 2-1 win. “I thought we controlled the game from start to finish, even against the wind in the first half.

“We should have scored in the first few minutes and I think we did enough.

“From the one chance they had they scored, I wasn’t worried at half-time.

“I told the players we would get chances and I was happy with the rhythm and quality of how we played.

“I saw the incident live and thought it was a penalty, looked at the linesman right away and he didn’t give but I believe it was the fourth official who actually gave it.

“I think they were upset it wasn’t called by the referee or the linesman.

“I don’t want to criticise referees, they are trying to do their job.

“The reality is I think we’ve only lost twice in five months, we’ve dropped points but from where we were for years to now be debt free, attached to the top three in the league and now in the Irish Cup semi-final - we would all have taken that.”

McDermott singled out Rory Donnelly and Navid Nasseri for special individual praise within his pride as the team’s overall tactical success.

“I thought Rory was superb, Navid was superb and everyone else did their job well,” he said. “We knew we would be against the wind in the first half so they would be picking up second balls a lot in midfield as it’s always easier running on if they meet our goalkeeper’s kicks.

“That was one of the reasons why we had Joe Crowe and Chris Gallagher sitting in front of the back four.

“Then you could see how many balls Rory won in the first half playing in behind Robbie, with Navid brilliant one-on-one.

“Navid can obviously play as a number 10 too but against a big team you want some height, so that was the thinking with Rory and given the quality up top I didn’t mind who would be drifting and it worked well.

“Also, Cameron Dummigan is a quality player if he gets on the ball so we knew Navid would keep him occupied.

“Given it’s a cup tie, we did practice penalties this week and you may need seven or eight capable of taking, so we had a group.

“I think that helps as a designated penalty taker could then be having a poor performance.

“Robbie stepped up and was feeling confident.”