Glentoran manager Declan Devine admitted that his side needed a stroke of luck to begin their comeback in Saturdays 2-1 win over Cliftonville at Solitude.
It arrived before the break when goalkeeper Daniel Gyollai caught out opposite number David Odumosu with a free-kick and their winner arrived with another element of fortune when Daniel Amos free-kick went through Odumosu and to the net to secure their first league win at Solitude since January 2022.
Devine, a former shot-stopper himself was full of praise for his Hungarian goalkeeper- not only for his goal- but for some crucial saves over the course of the game.
“We needed a bit of luck, but we needed to show a bit more character in the second half and a bit more fight about us than we did in the first half” reflected Devine.
“Dan [Gyollai] will get all the credit and rightly so because not only did he score a goal, he kept us in it in the first half with his saves.
“We were disappointed at half time even to come in 1-1 because we knew we weren’t at our levels.
“Full credit to the players, they showed brilliant character into that gale force wind. The last three games have been away to Windsor, away to Seaview and away to Solitude – come away with three wins is testimony to the players and the character that they’ve shown”.
Victory carried the in-form Glens into joint second place in the table with Portadown ahead of their third Big-Two derby of the season with Linfield on St Stephen’s Day at the Oval and Devine feels there is more to come from his squad.
“We still have to strive to get better” he admits.
“We’re nowhere near there yet, we have to put our wins to the backburner really quickly and keep showing the same appetite and hunger to go after the next one.
“As a new group, they’re really tight together as a group and they’re giving a lot. It wasn’t a great game let’s be honest about it- the conditions were horrendous.
“We didn’t play anywhere near the level of football that we can play, but ultimately we showed the character and desire to get the win”.
Cliftonville assistant manager Gerard Lyttle wasn’t excusing the conditions for the element of fortune in Glentoran’s equaliser and bemoaned the defence failing to defend their own box.
“You have to defend your box as a defensive unit and part of that defensive unit is a goalkeeper and the back four” said Lyttle.
“We didn’t do that. Obviously, the conditions were poor, and it was hard to judge but we need to do better in terms of defending our own box.
“Whether it is a goalkeeper or a centre-back of whatever, we just didn’t defend our box well enough”.
Lyttle also rued the lack of cutting edge over both halves in their second successive league defeat.
“We need to take our chances” Lyttle stressed.
“We’ve created a lot of good chances in the first half and Taylor [Steven] has got probably the best chance of the second half and we haven’t taken it.
“We got punished with a weak free kick and it’s went into the back of the net and we’re really disappointed coming in here with a loss”.