WHAT THE MANAGER SAID: Dean Smith's 'mixed emotions' as Loughgall twice let lead slip in away derby draw
Loughgall took the lead at 1-0 and 2-1 against Glenavon as substitutes Jay Boyd and Jordan Gibson found the net but the hosts battled back off Barney McKeown and James Doona to leave it 2-2 at full-time.
Here’s the verdict of Loughgall manager Dean Smith:
PERFORMANCE…
"Mixed emotions...I think we done enough in the game to win it (but) a couple of lapses in concentration from our point-of-view have probably cost us two points.
"But in terms of performance, endeavour, attitude, hunger and desire we were probably missing last week (loss to Dungannon Swifts)...we talked about a reaction and certainly got that today.
"I don’t think we probably got what we deserved but it certainly was a big difference to last week.”
REACTION...
"I’ve a group of players I’ve worked with a long time and I knew we would get a reaction.
"I knew we would turn up and put a performance in...it’s no surprise they did do it today.
"The only downside is we didn’t get the three points I thought we fully deserved.”
SUBS…
"You can see now we’ve a bench available to us that can change games.
"They done that today.
"Jay Boyd was a handful when he came on, took his goal...a poacher’s goal.
"And Jordan Gibson comes on with a super finish from what I thought was a really good counter-attack.
"So lots of positives to take from the game.”
GOALS CONCEDED...
"We’re disappointed with the goals we gave away, we have to watch them back to see can we do better.
"But overall pleased with the performance.”
He added: "We talk about man-management.
"It’s a long throw-in (Glenavon’s first equaliser) and we don’t win the initial head on it.
"I’m not saying it’s not a good finish but it’s a looping header that can go anywhere and, for them, it’s fallen into the net.
"The second was, I think, a mix-up maybe as Tiernan (Kelly) goes to clear it then pulls out of it and from that they score.
"So there’s certain wee things we can do and if you look at the two goals we conceded we’re disappointed.
"But if you look at the amount of chances we created, especially in the last half-hour of the game I’m really pleased.”
CHALLENGE…
"There’s no difference in the challenge (second season after promotion) as everyone just writes us off and we just use that as motivation.
"For me personally, I think the league’s got stronger from what has come into the league.
"And I think the bottom six has got a lot stronger.
"There’s differences in the league but I think we’ve improved as well from last season.”