Irish Premiership: Higgins takes responsibility for early two-goal deficit against Reds
Coleraine manager Ruaidhri Higgins says he takes responsibility for the fact that his side had to recover from an early 2-0 deficit to overcome Cliftonville 6-2 in Saturday's Irish Premiership game at Ballycastle Road.Goals from Joe Gormley and Liam McStravick saw the Bannsiders trail by two after the opening quarter of the contest but the home side blasted back to take victory, Joel Cooper grabbing a hat-trick and Matthew Shevlin contributing two.The win keeps Higgins' charges in touch with leaders Larne, whom they trail by five points ahead of the final two rounds of fixtures, and two behind second-placed Glentoran."I take a wee bit of responsibility for the first 20 minutes or so. We got our shape wrong and they exploited the areas where we were vacant," Higgins told BBC Sport NI."We had to change our shape and the players responded brilliantly."We scored some brilliant goals today and the first one was a key one because it got the crowd up and it got our players believing and we went from strength to strength from there on."It's probably a game that in the first half of the season we might not have come back in. But there's a real resilience in this group now, there's quality."The Coleraine boss praised prolific pairing Cooper and Shevlin, but also pointed out the impact of the players who have been provide the ammunition."We're on an extremely good run. Since the Larne game in early January we have lost one league game but we need to keep this momentum going until the end of the season."They [Cooper and Shevlin] know where the net is but they'll be the first to tell you that when you have the likes of [Ben] Wylie and [Jamie] Glackin and [Will] Patching, attack-minded players around them, it gives them every opportunity to score goals."As much as they have great quality, they have great quality around them as well."
