Oran Kearney reflects on 'crazy' BetMcLean Cup tie against Ballymena United as Coleraine prevail in the joint-third longest penalty shoot-out in history

As the game finished 1-1 after extra-time, the second round tie in the BetMcLean Cup would ultimately be decided through penalties.

However, nobody in the ground could have anticipated the drama to come as a total of 44 spot kicks were taken by both teams.

In the end, Coleraine would come out on top 18-17, in what was the joint-third longest penalty shoot-out in football history.

"It's amazing," Kearney responded to the historic shoot-out saga.

"I think we had two or three chances to win it.

"I think Ballymena had at least two chances where they were hitting a penalty to win it - Gareth Deane saved one and one went over the bar.

"It had everything, it was crazy.

"Probably both sets of players and staff were mentally drained at the end of it."

The Bannsiders had trailed at half-time through Scot Whiteside's header but responded to level on the hour mark as Josh Carson scored from the spot following a foul on Davy McDaid.

During the shoot-out - in which Bannsiders 'keeper Gareth Deane scored twice - Kearney decided to change his running order after Kieran Farren and Lyndon Kane missed the first time around.

"Credit to those who missed and then scored at the second attempt," Kearney added.

"Credit also to Gareth Deane who saved them and then had to hit them as well.

"It was hard as we've never been in that scenario before.

"We knew very quickly coming to the end of the first cycle that you can totally change your order up, you don't have to go in the same order again.

"I was more concerned for those that had missed, like Lyndon and Kieran Farren, but trying to get that onto the field of play was difficult as they were looking over at me.

"Nobody expected it to go three cycles of penalties and I didn't want to put pressure on the likes of Kieran.

"To be fair to Kieran, he was forced to step up and hit a penalty and to be fair he's shown great character."

Coleraine have reached the last three finals of the competition and with Cliftonville and Crusaders bowing out, Kearney has his eyes on reaching the showpiece decider yet again.

He continued: “When it goes to 44 penalties, it’s anybody's guess.

"There's a few guys who didn't want to hit penalties and they were forced to hit two or three tonight and they'll be hitting them the next time with the standard of some of the penalties.

“The important thing is to be in the next round of the cup.

"We weren't at our best but the key thing was we suffered, and we suffered in the right way where we kept working at it, we didn't let our mentality drop.

“Even then, to go and dig as deep as we've dug for the 44 penalties showed a lot.

“There are eight teams left in it and there were shocks tonight.

“It's a competition that we've gone hard in and done well in and we want to do that again."