Glenavon boss Paddy McLaughlin was left, for a second successive Premiership Saturday, to confirm his belief in future gains alongside accepting present pain.

Having lost out on the opening day of his first full season as manager of the Mourneview Park club, McLaughlin had to put another defeat into context over the weekend following Danny Gibson’s decisive finish securing victory for Carrick Rangers.

The 1-0 loss failed to feature any significant work for Rangers goalkeeper Nathan Gartside – with one David McDaid effort dragged wide and Jimmy Callacher blocking on the line a Michael O’Connor shot the totality of Glenavon’s attacking threat.

McLaughlin reflected on the current position with his trademark pragmatism – pointing out the reality of a squad developing after summer rebuilding but fully aware a blank book from two games is short of expectations across the board.

placeholder image — Carrick Rangers' Nedas Maciulaitis under pressure from Glenavon on Saturday. (Photo by Alan Weir/Pacemaker Press)

"Supporters - like myself, the players, the staff - want to win every match,” said McLaughlin. "It is a competitive league but it's a poor start from us with two defeats and we're not hiding away from that.

"We are a work-in-progress, it's a young group of players but nobody wants to hear that, they just want to see results...we need to get a result to get us up-and-running.

"There's a lot of talent in the room, a lot of young talent and they're probably just experiencing the ugly side of the league at the minute.

"A difficult game against Ballymena to start with, a difficult game here today...I'm sure it was difficult to watch at times.

"Our boys will have to learn to deal with that, if they don't they'll continue to suffer

"It's my job for them to learn these lessons quickly, it's my job for chances to be created at the top end more frequently, it's my job to help the strikers start scoring more goals.

"As a group we'll work hard, we'll keep our heads down, we'll take our criticism and we'll lick our wounds.”

A trip to Taylors Avenue is traditionally one of the most demanding in the Irish League calendar.

"An awkward place to come, we all knew that, we knew it was going to be a roll-up-the-sleeves job,” said the Glenavon boss. "I thought we did that really well the first half, bar the goal...we're not happy with that, it was a soft goal to give away.

"For all the huffing and puffing we done, we didn't breach their defence too often.

"I know we'd one cleared off the line but, as an attacking force, we definitely didn't create anywhere near enough chances.

"We knew it was one of those we had to sacrifice performance for the result.

"We did a lot of ugly stuff really well either side of the goal but we just didn't create anywhere enough chances.

"Ultimately, if you don't create you don't score.

"It was a big chance for us surely (McDaid)...he's done well, he's rolled the defender and is in on goal off a great ball forward, he scores that, I'm sure it would have changed the flow of the game...how the result turns out.

"But after that there's still a lot of football and we just didn't get in behind Carrick enough...the scramble in the box cleared off the line should've been a goal but just that lack of killer instinct in the final third probably cost us at least a point.”