Kee gutted for his players after Garrett’s late winner

Institute defender Graham Crown challenges Cliftonville's David McDaid, during Saturday's match at the Riverside Stadium. Picture by Darren Kidd/Press Eye

The Drumahoe man felt his players were more than a match for the reigning champions, but they were hit by Stephen Garrett’s stoppage time winner.

“I’m disappointed for the players, because they put in a fantastic shift in, they worked hard but it shows you the nature of the Premiership,” he admitted.

“We have to learn from the defeat because we can’t have any passengers and I feel we could have done a wee bit better in one or two cases in the second half but we’ll talk about that this week at training.

“I can’t fault the players, we still have a lot of players out injured, we still have players who need clearance and I’m sure (Michael) McCrudden (Cormac) Burke would have played on Saturday.

“When we had to go that other yard we just couldn’t in the last 15 minutes in the second half it was nip and tuck, but we must learn from this.

“People will say there’s a gap but we showed on Saturday that we can get close to the gap if we stick at it and work hard at it and give ourselves every possible chance in every game and that’s what we did on Saturday.

“We gave ourselves the chance and we had the point and to concede late on is a real disappointment for the players.”

Kee was also annoyed by the manner of which his side conceded the Reds first two goals.

“The first two goals we conceded were diabolical and we will speak this week about it, but it’s the nature of the Premiership because if you don’t get yourself into position or take responsibility, then you get punished and that’s what happened.

“But to come back so quickly after conceding the first goal was fantastic and then to come back again after their second goal was another great effort.”