Reds make their point

Glenavon 1-1 Cliftonville

Daire O’Connor registered his third goal in two appearances as Cliftonville earned their first away point of the Danske Bank Premiership season in this evening’s clash with Glenavon.

After making a bright start, the Reds found themselves under a spell of pressure as the first-half wore on yet carved out arguably the best opportunity of the opening 45 minutes when Michael McCrudden’s low drive called Jonny Tuffey into action.

The hosts came close to breaking the deadlock when, in the aftermath of Cliftonville being forced into yet another defensive rejig following an injury to Ryan O’Reilly, Conor McCloskey crashed a looping effort against the crossbar.

With just over 20 minutes to play, the visitors went ahead when substitute O’Connor demonstrated a keen burst of pace to dash in behind a Glenavon defender before producing a cool finish after beating goalkeeper Tuffey to the ball.

Unfortunately, however, the Reds’ lead would last for just three minutes; Danny Purkis applying the finish to restore the stalemate.

With both teams going in search of a late winner, Richard Brush made a fine stop to keep Conan Byrne’s header out before Joe Gormley saw two opportunities come and go; firstly, screwing an attempt wide after doing well to get past his man before lashing high and wide under pressure in the closing seconds of injury-time.

Cliftonville: Brush, McDermott, O’Reilly (Foster), Harney, C Curran, R Curran, McCrudden (O’Connor), McMenamin (Gormley), Donnelly, Bagnall, Doherty. Unused subs: Dunne, McKee, Casey, Maguire.