Still positives to take insists Dungannon Swifts boss Kris Lindsay

The visitors made a slow start at The Showgrounds and fell behind to Aaron Jarvis’ eighth minute header.

They could have found themselves out of the game by half time but for some great goalkeeping from Sam Johnston.

The Swifts improved after the break and were unfortunate not to bring themselves level.

But they were undone by a late Eoin Bradley volley as they finished pointless again, Lindsay though wasn’t too disheartened.

“The second half performance was much better and that’s what we need to focus on,” he said.

“There are a lot of positives for us to take out of the second half.

“Coleraine were the better team in the first half and we couldn’t get to grips with it.

“We had a little tweak near the tail-end of the first half, and we had a good talk at the break.

“I thought we were much better in the second half, it was more like us.

“That’s what we need to continue to do. We can’t keep having 45 minute performances.

“But as I say we will take positives out of today.

“I thought the young players who came in did well. I thought Terry Devlin was excellent, Ben Gallagher looked lively up front.

“Another positive is Caolan McAleer getting 70 minutes under his belt and ‘Dougie’ got another 90.

“Coleraine away is a difficult place to come to. They are vastly experienced and they know how to win games and manage games, and they did that today.

“They got their goal early enough but they could have been another two or three up at half time.

“Credit must go to us as well as we dug in and stayed in the game.

“We’ve talked a lot this season about not conceding and conceding again.

“We did stay in the game through some good goalkeeping, poor finishing from them and some okay defending from us.

“We came out and were much brighter in the second half. We had a couple of decent chances.

“To be fair, ‘Deansey’ makes a great save, a close range block from Rhyss, and Ben had a good chance from a header.

“There were a couple of other half chances and shots from distance as well.

“That’s the difference though, you have to take those chances when they come along.

“We didn’t do that today, but I think the more minutes Ben gets under his belt, the sharper he’ll get.

“He’s only played 10 minutes before today, so getting that 70 minutes will help him.

“We need to keep creating chances and make sure we take them.”

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