Declan Devine pulled no punches about his side’s performance at the Coleraine Showgrounds as their hopes of automatic European qualification went up in smoke.

The Glens were punished for a lacklustre display on the north coast as they were put to the sword in a 6-2 win for the hosts.

Here’s what Devine had to say after the full-time whistle.

THOUGHTS ON THE DEFEAT?

placeholder image — Glentoran manager Declan Devine

“Absolutely terrible performance.

"We've played 37 games this year to give ourselves a chance and then turn up and play like that is just completely unacceptable.

"Probably the worst performance for two years and it’s not acceptable and really surprising to be honest because I felt that we got over performances like that and I don't think Coleraine had to be that good today – I think we were that poor.

"You know the goals, when we analyse the goals that we give away, it's schoolboy stuff.

"It’s schoolboy stuff and in such an important game we haven't showed up.

“We've fought for 10 months to try and give ourselves and our fans something to cheer about towards the end of the season and they come here today and perform in the manner we did – it's completely unacceptable.

“Look the buck stops with me, it's my team, I put it out.

"The story of the game is we gave away so many poor goals and Coleraine probably could have scored more.

"All in all there's no shying away from it's a completely unacceptable performance from us today and as I say I picked the team and I take the brunt.

IMPROVED POINTS TALLY:

"It's really not a reflection on what we've had to do for the course of the season.

"We've been very positive, we had one of the best away records coming into the game today, and we knew we were playing a team that had the best home record and we knew we would have to be good.

"But it was just mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake and there was no cohesion in our play, there was no desire in our play, there was no aggression in our play and it looked like a performance that we had nothing to play for.

"That's the surprising aspect for me is that we fought for 37 games to give ourselves a chance at doing something and to come and play like that today is unacceptable.

REASON BETWEEN THIRD PLACE AND FIRST?

"We haven't won enough games against the top sides.

"We've beat Coleraine a few times and we've beat Linfield once, they've beat us once in the league.

"But against Larne and the big games have came and gone and we've let them go and that's something that we have to be better at.

"We've won a lot of really good games this year and played a really good brand of football, scored a lot of goals but our goals against column has been poor and there's no turning away from it.