WHAT THE MANAGER SAID: 'I've never seen the like of it' - Niall Currie reacts to Portadown loss with goalkeeper red just one talking point
Portadown lost out to Coleraine by 2-0 – with boss Niall Currie left to lament injuries to two players and future suspension woe off a red card and significant booking.
Here’s the post-match view of Niall Currie:
RED CARD…
"Aaron (McCarey) had nothing to do and we wanted to get in at half-time in a decent position before, hopefully, being in a position to expand and be better on the ball in the second half ourselves.
"It is what it is (the red card)...he's an experienced boy and he knows himself.
"We shot ourselves in the foot to a certain degree.
"Aaron's sending off changes everything.
"But, listen, he's won us a lot of football matches at this club so we are not going to hang that man out to dry.
"I just think if we'd kept 11 v 11 we could've got something out of the game."
LONG-TERM IMPACT…
"Anything that could go wrong, went wrong for us today.
"I've never seen the like of it.
"Losing Ray Tulloch and losing Ben Wylie (to injury) and then Aaron's situation (red card).
"With Alex Moore injured that's why we didn't have a back-up goalkeeper on the bench today.
"But Eamon (Fyfe) is more than capable, as you've seen.
"Now we've lost Baris (Altintop) as well on a fifth booking.
"We'll now see where Alex is on his shoulder injury.
"Ray is going to be out for the foreseeable with his hamstring and just hope it's not as serious as we think.
"Ben is, hopefully, looking okay...he thought at the time it was his knee (return of old serious injury).
"You don't lose confidence or momentum off defeats like that...in fact it can galvanise the group.
"My players gave the club everything so I can take that (defeat).
"It's losing Tulloch, it's losing Wylie, it's losing Altintop, it's losing McCarey.
"That's the big blow...all big-game players.
"Just at a point when we were starting to get players back and looking really positive."
OVERALL PERFORMANCE...
"It's all a hugely disappointing day (but) I can't praise the players highly enough.
"Even up to the sending off we frustrated them…although we didn't break out the way we did last week against Linfield, get an outlet or stay on the ball well enough to get possession.
"We stood off them too much - but the shape was fantastic, we were solid.
"The players ran themselves into the ground.
"It's very difficult going down to 10 against a team of that quality.
"It wasn't meant to be but you can always gauge the reaction when everyone gets clapped off the pitch (by the fans)."
COLERAINE GOALS v 10 MEN...
"The biggest frustration for us is they didn't open us up, they didn't create overloads...they scored from two corner-kicks.
"One of which one of our players didn't pick up...no matter if you've 10 men, nine or eight there's no excuse.
"We didn't defend.
"But for the second goal I think it was a free-kick (for a foul on goalkeeper Eamon Fyfe).
"You can see our players were furious."