Skipper nothappyafter loss

The former Finn Harps man, also conceded that conditions didn’t favour their usual passing style but that is something he and his team-mates need to work on.

“To finish the year with a defeat definitely wasn’t part of the plan,” declared McLaughlin.

“Conditions really dictated how the game was going to take shape, the weather was poor and the pitch was really cutting up badly and it was heavy in there and it stopped us from playing football.

“We definitely need to work on that and be able to mix-it with teams, if you look back on all our games this season we haven’t had drawn a game, we have either won or lost and if you look back on those games that we have lost it’s the same as Saturday’s match.

“Teams are up and at us, in our face, stopping us playing and getting men behind the ball early, Limavady did that very well on Saturday, but it’s something we have to work on, as we have struggled and talked about it too often.

“We just have to adapt because we haven’t been doing it and it’s costing us badly.”

The experienced defender was also frustrated the talented midfielder Neil Harkin was sent-off for the second time in three games, after he handled the ball instinctively while on the goal-line, but McLaughlin knows that red-card will more than likely result in a longer suspension.

“Once again we shot ourselves in the foot by giving away soft goals and it was disappointing that we also lost Neil (Harkin), with the hand ball on the line.

“The worst thing about the result and sending off means that we are going to be missing one of our key players for a lot of games, because that’s his second sending off and he’s going to be a big loss for us, but we have to dust ourselves down and get on with it.

“You know what you get whenever you play against Limavady, they are hard working, get men behind the ball and try to stop you playing, they came for a scrap and they got one, because footballing wise we didn’t get into any type of rhythm, because of the conditions.

“A positive result on Saturday would have put us right into the mix and it’s really frustrating because they (Limavady) are struggling at the bottom end of the table and we’re challenging at the top end, so for them to come to our ground and get a 2-0 win, is totally against what we all expected, but probably on Saturday the conditions suited them better than us,” concluded the centre-back.