Gregg: 'We were way off'

He also conceded that despite starting the game well at Solitude, two goals in the space of four minutes midway through the first half all but ended the game as a contest.

"Cliftonville are a good side and whenever they attack, they really attack you," he said.

"Chances wise they had five good opportunities and scored three goals so that tells its own story. While I have seen Kevin (Ramsey) score a lot more difficult goals than the two chances he missed on Saturday, Paul Lowry also had a chance which he snatched at but he's a young striker.

"I said to the lads at half-time, that for the first 15 minutes we started well and were up for the game but those two goals really killed us.

"The first goal I felt we were way off. Cliftonville attack with a lot of players bursting into our penalty area, while we were plodding back, the ball should have been cleared. A cross came in and their striker was allowed to take a touch before laying it back for (Liam) Boyce to score.

"Gavin (Cullen) has lost the second goal because of the sun shine, which he held his hands up to at half-time. So then we found ourselves 2-0 down at half-time.

"I told the players at half-time that I wanted a bit of bite and hunger in the second half and I got that for 20/25 minutes of the second half, but Cliftonville did what they do well and scored a third goal, which effectively ended the game."

The Coleraine man also felt his side were over playing in areas of the pitch, which in turn led to the home side either scoring or creating clear-cut chances.

"I think we were caught too many times playing too much and I'm not being funny we can play, but in the Irish League a lot of games are won by mistakes and that happened to us on Saturday.

"In any game of football first and foremost you have to win the right to try and play football and I felt on Saturday we were off it in regards that. Cliftonville deserved to win and you can't take that away from them but I was disappointed that we were out-muscled and I'm looking for some sort of reaction because as far as I'm concerned it wasn't good enough on Saturday.

"I don't care what resources you have or what players you have, whenever you are five yards off players and you aren't willing to close players down then you aren't going to get anything."