Coughlin: “We were poor – but who cares about the performance?!”

App users should click here for John Coughlin’s interview with Eric Tait.

Manager John Coughlin has revealed that prior to yesterday’s 1-0 victory over Stirling Albion, he stressed the importance of picking up all three points, even if it was at the expense of attractive football.

“As much as we should all be very happy with four clean sheets in a row, our general performance in the second half was poor, and I’ve told the players that – I think Stirling deserved a point out of the game and if they’d netted their penalty I don’t think there’d have been many arguments.

“For me that was down to not being able to hold on to possession well enough, but to be fair to the lads I did tell them before the game, really who cares about the performances at this stage? It’s about making sure we get the points and we’re safe.

“You’ve got to take your hats off to the ‘keeper and his defence today – I think they’ve earned us the win. Jonny Fairbairn’s goal-line clearance was fantastic and the goalkeeper (Kevin Walker) has made several good saves.”

And speaking of the decision to award Stirling Albion a penalty in the final minute of the match, manager Coughlin revealed he was tempted to pack management in!

“I was gutted – I thought they were about to get the point. I think it was the Middlesbrough manager who decided the other night that he’d had enough and I was thinking to myself ‘I’m exactly the same – I can’t take this!’.

“A penalty against us and a player sent off and lost for next week and you think things have gone against us. But we get the luck and it turns out to be a good decision by Brian though it could have been a bad one!

“No matter what went wrong on the day, we’ve got exactly what we wanted which was the clean sheet and the win. Now we can look to the Annan game next weekend, they play midweek so it sets us up quite nicely for that.”

Coughlin also discusses the state of the Shielfield pitch, tactics for the game, the goalkeeping situation and more in his interview with Eric Tait.

The club also launched their official Periscope account yesterday (OfficialBRFC) and broadcast the interview with John Coughlin LIVE immediately following the match.

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