WHAT THE MANAGER SAID: Cliftonville's Gerard Lyttle with 'lick your wounds and move on' message after two red cards in away loss
Cliftonville assistant boss Gerard Lyttle was in charge on Saturday as his players entered half-time against Portadown down to nine men and down by two goals.
The Reds conceded to Ryan Mayse then lost Conor Pepper to a second bookable offence and Jonny Addis off a straight red card before Ahu Obhakhan doubled the Portadown advantage by the break.
Here’s the verdict of Gerard Lyttle:
OVERALL PERFORMANCE...
"Obviously a poor day for us.
"Credit Portadown, they've got the win but I think we beat ourselves today, to be honest, in terms of the first half.
"Second half the boys have come out with that heart and desire not to concede any more.
"First half the game was done...it's hard enough when you lose one player but when you lose two players it's always going to be backs against the wall.
"But it was the nature of how we lost those players and how we conceded the goals...really disappointing."
He added: "The second half all we could do was maybe treat it as a training session in terms of a defensive session and get something out of it that way.
"And the boys done really well...but the first half was unacceptable for us as a team and club, we felt let down.
"But sometimes these things happen in a season and you've just got to lick your wounds and move on quickly."
RED CARDS...
"Jonny's was definitely (red)...but Conor's, maybe a little bit of common sense from the referee, he (Conor) has just been booked.
"I think the pitch played a part in getting the second yellow card in terms of timing your tackles and timing your passes.
"When you look at it, I don't think there's been any contact in Conor's second yellow card.
"That's disappointing obviously.
"Odhran Casey (earlier booking for off-the-ball incident) was stupid and we spoke about it at half-time that he was lucky."
He added: "We could stand here and point the finger at officials and point the finger at everybody but at the end of the day we've lost the game.
"We've put a poor performance in, especially the first half."
SECOND HALF...
"It was important that that didn't happen (concede more goals).
"That's what we asked at half-time from the lads, to show a bit of character.
"And for the fans as well who have come down and paid their money to watch their team...it's the very least we could do.
"But it was character second half but a lack of character first half that got us into trouble.
"It's hard to single anyone out...the boys that stayed on the pitch and finished the game all have to come out with a bit of credit in terms of rolling their sleeves up.
"It's not nice and not easy playing against a team that has possession, when a team that normally has possession.
"I don't think Portadown had a shot in the second half.
"It's really frustrating for us, we could make a lot of excuses today for things but there was no excuse for the first-half performance."
JOE GORMLEY...
"We were concerned about the pitch beforehand, I don't want to stand here making excuses about pitches because there are two teams.
"But I think things need to be better in terms of what we've played on today...a lot of players will be sore after a heavy pitch.
"We'll assess him (Gormley, who was substituted in the second half following an injury) on Monday in training and hopefully it's not too serious."
VIEW FROM SIDELINES...
"To be honest, at 1-0 I was just thinking 'let's get in at half-time and we'll regroup'.
"At 10 men I'm thinking we'll rejig at half-time but it's hard and at that point (second red card and second goal) there's not too many things you can do.
"The only thing we could do was ask the players to stay in the shape, work hard, keep good discipline and keep the scoreline as it is.
"I thought we frustrated Portadown second half and we were looking at a set play, a wee bit of magic or something...but we've had a bad day."