Samuel Gelston's Whiskey Irish Cup quarter-final: Ballymena United 3 Larne 3 (Ballymena
BALLYMENA United boss David Jeffrey insists he never lost faith in his players as they booked their Irish Cup semi-final spot on Saturday – even when they left themselves with a mountain to climb early on.
United were two goals down inside the first 15 minutes at the Showgrounds, but came back to win the game on penalties, with Caolan Loughran stepping off the bench to scoring the winner.
They have been drawn to face Glentoran at the beginning of next month in the semi-final clash, although with a potential eligibility issue brewing around Joe Crowe’s involvement for the Glens that remains to be seen.
“I’ve got nothing but praise for the players,” Jeffrey grinned.
“To be two goals down so early on in the game, I actually turned to Bryan (McLaughlin) and said ‘we’re actually doing well here’.
“We then got ourselves back into the game at 2-1 and we concede another poor goal at 3-1.
“The players were actually angry at themselves at half-time, so Bryan and I didn’t have to be overly angry at them.
“There was a real resolve in the second half and we went to penalties from there.
“I thought the little bit of good fortunate you need we got. Sean O’Neill also pulls off two fantastic stops in the shoot-out for us.
“It’s also a great story with the local boy Caolan Loughran winning it for us at the end.”
Larne began the tie like a house on fire and early goals from Lee Lynch and Lee Bonis fired them into a 2-0 lead.
Paul McElroy halved the deficit before Albert Watson restored the two-goal cushion just after the half hour mark.
Crucially Ballymena went into the break with their tails up as David Parkhouse cut Larne’s lead a minute into stoppage time and the comeback was complete, with a quarter of an hour to go, as Mikey Place’s free-kick sailed over Conor Devlin.
When it went to the shoot-out, on-loan Crusaders goalkeeper Sean O’Neill saved from Matty Lusty and Lee Bonis, to leave Loughran to seal the 4-3 win on penalties.
Larne boss Tiernan Lynch didn’t mince his words afterwards, as he saw another potential route to Europe slip out of their hands.
“Not good enough, simple as that,” was his assessment.
“We let ourselves down, the club down and the fans down. The fans deserved more than what we gave them.
“We were 2-0 up and in cruise control…and I don’t have the answers to what we did next.
“All I can do on behalf on the players and staff is apologise.
“I think we didn’t work hard enough. I’m the first one to back the players, and we’re in this together, so it wasn’t good enough from us all.
“European football at stake, cup finals at stake and it has to mean more to miss out on that like we have done.
“It’s such a difficult pill to swallow. It’s the sort of result which has to sting, it has to hurt and spoil everyone’s weekend.”
