THE heat in Nice troubled and delayed Kyle Lafferty, but he argued his Northern Ireland team “froze” in their opening Euro 2016 defeat against Poland.
On their debut in the continental spotlight, he labelled them “a shadow of the team that got us here”, but insisted they’ll produce “a far better performance” against Ukraine on Thursday night.
“Maybe the occasion took over and we didn't turn up,” mused the 28-year-old.
“I think everyone has to… get together, see what went wrong and see how we can fix it. The good thing is we've got two more games to put it right and try to get out of the group.”
Kyle rejected a suggestion nerves had played a part, but suggested qualities normally associated with Northern Ireland were absent: “It's okay talking about nerves, but the fight and the determination were not there either. We just got hit by a very good Poland side and we didn't know what to do.
“Whenever we've faced teams like that before, we could take control of it, take the game by the scruff of the neck and create chances, but we didn't do that against Poland, we pretty much froze on the spot.”
The NI supporters were terrific, making huge amounts of noise, even after the final whistle last Sunday night and Lafferty regretted losing, especially for them: “It's disappointing because the fans have travelled here and we should have put on a better performance for them, but we didn't…
“The lads are disappointed. I walked in after doing a drugs test and I could see their disappointment. I'm disappointed as well. For Michael [O’Neill], for his coaching staff, for all the people who've paid good money to come out here, we let them down and we'll put it right on Thursday."
The team in training:
“A win could take us out of this group. We still have belief. We've got two games to put it right and I'm sure we'll give a better performance than we did against Poland.”
It was a tough night for Lafferty personally, with the 5-4-1 formation only having one player near him for two-thirds of the match, until Conor Washington came on as a second striker.
The delivery to him wasn’t sufficiently accurate either, but he insisted the overall team display wasn’t good enough: “It was difficult. It wasn't a game in which I was going to see much of the ball," Lafferty added.
"We might have used the ball a bit better, but I'm not going to stand here and label other players. It's a team game. But as an overall team performance, it wasn't good enough and we should have done better. It was the first stage and we didn't turn up.”
The Norwich City player suggested the one positive from the Poland defeat was that it would spur him and his team-mates on to be much better against Ukraine: “Obviously, we would have liked to have picked up something but, after this performance, we're not going to have another one like it against Ukraine…
“Poland are a good side. They've got world class players. But if we'd have turned up against them, we would've hoped to have given them a better game. We didn't do that, so we've no excuses.
“We'll look into it, get our heads sorted, get our tactics right and I know we'll put up a far better performance than this. Not one player will let the fans down. Even if we don't get the result we want on Thursday, the fight and determination that got us here will be there.”
Lafferty concluded by accepting another flat display on Thursday night would probably spell the end of Northern Ireland’s hopes of progress, given the final group game is against Germany.
“Yes, I think so. We can't expect to produce a performance like that and get anything from the game," he said.
"We're not in the qualifiers any more, where you might come up against some of the minnows, we're playing amongst the best 24 teams in Europe and, if you don't turn up, you're getting punished.
“We didn't get disgraced. We went a goal down, but when you play against teams like Poland, you can't go 1-0 down, then turn up and expect to get something out of it.”
Northern Ireland fans are gearing up for the Ukraine game:
