Stephen Baxter not directing any blame after Carrick Rangers miss two penalties in Loughgall draw

After Jamie Rea was adjudged to have brought down Danny Gibson in the second half, David Cushley stepped up with a prime opportunity to fire the hosts in front, only to be thwarted by a fine Gartside stop with the ex-Cliftonville ace diving low to his right.

Less than half an hour late, Rea was penalised again – this time harshly after the ball popped up off his thigh and into his own arm – but Gartside was up to the task for a second time, denying Gibson and ultimately securing a point for the Villagers, who felt they should have had their own penalty in the dying moments for a challenge by Joe Crowe on Jay Boyd.

From his own experience as an Irish League sharpshooter for the likes of Linfield and Crusaders, Baxter knows the pressure of stepping up to the spot and says his side will move on after collecting yet another point.

Carrick have picked up 13 from a possible 27 at the start of his tenure and only lost two of nine league matches since he replaced Stuart King in October, which came against the current top-two of Linfield and Dungannon Swifts.

"It’s incredibly disappointing when you get two penalties and miss both,” he said. “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.

"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.”