Draw was 'least we deserved' says Oran

COLERAINE manager Oran Kearney has paid credit to his players for their never say die spirit in Tuesday's 2-2 draw with Linfield at Windsor Park.

Matthew Shevlin struck deep into added time to rescue a point for the visitors who stretch their unbeaten run to eight games.

"It had that feeling from the sideline (that it would have been an injustice not to get anything) and I know we're as biased as hell and you only see your own performance and your own team," said Oran.

"To be fair, when Shevy scored the header, Winkie came straight over and said to me it's the least we deserved and that was probably the feeling of where we were at.

"Big credit to the players: it's been an important couple of months and a big couple of months and it's not necessarily the result for us, to me it's more the manner of the performance.

"I just thought we were bang on it from the word go. There's been massive shoots of recovery with good players coming back into the squad in the past couple of months and the important bit is that we're making up for lost time in fitness wise, sharpness wise.

"But performances are key at this point in time. We were disappointed with the Cliftonville match a few weeks ago where, in the first half, we didn't chin the bar. The second half we were good and last Saturday against the Glens we were good for the 90 minutes.

"Against Linfield, we had periods of the game where we had to suffer a bit but I thought, as a whole, it was a very pleasing performance," he added.

The draw, allied with Larne's late winner against Glentoran at the Oval, means it's advantage the Inver Reds in the chase for the Gibson Cup.

Not that the Coleraine manager cares.

"We don't give a damn about the title race and what happens and I don't mean that in a crude way," continued Oran.

"We have our own agenda - we wanted to carry on, we've been in a really good run of form - we have an agenda that's a couple of weeks away where we feel we're ready to go and attack a play-off.

"That was our sole focus; for us, we're not hugely concerned about Larne or Linfield.

"The key thing for us is three games before the split we wanted to chin the bar with another good performance and we got that."

Coleraine play their penultimate game of the regular season when they host Crusaders this weekend.