Reds are hit hard

Larne 4-0 Cliftonville

Cliftonville suffered their first Danske Bank Premiership defeat since the opening day of the season on a chastening evening in Larne.

Trailing 1-0 after a poor first 45 minutes, the Reds began the second-half in lively fashion and twice came close to levelling before Sean Moore’s dismissal heightened a task that quickly got away courtesy of the hosts adding three further goals in a six-minute spell.

Though things had started ominously for Cliftonville with Paul O’Neill twice threatening to break the deadlock, the first save of the night saw home stopper Rohan Ferguson get down to repel a fierce low drive from Rory Hale.

It wasn’t long, however, before the opening goal arrived and, while Jonny Addis did well to block Lee Bonis’ first shot and Nathan Gartside made a fine save from Leroy Millar’s follow-up, the ball ricocheted off the crossbar and fell favourably for O’Neill to tuck home from close range.

Having failed to generate any sort of momentum in the first-half, the Reds made two changes at the break with the introductions of Chris Curran and Odhran Casey sparking an immediate improvement that saw Ronan Hale draw another save from Ferguson.

Casey was next to threaten with a long-range howitzer that whistled just off target before Cliftonville were reduced to 10 men when referee Stephen Gregg flashed a straight red card in Moore’s direction for a waist-high challenge on Aaron Donnelly that, curiously, left the Larne defender clutching his head.

Though the away side attempted to build on that bright start to the second period, they were never able to regenerate the same impact and fell further behind when, following a Millar foul on Casey that the officials failed to spot, Bonis found the far corner with a well-taken strike.

Any hopes of an immediate damage limitation procedure kicking in were undone as Larne quickly added a third when Bonis converted at the second time of asking having initially been denied by a smart block from the impressive Gartside.

The striker quickly completed his hat-trick with another rebound following Gartside’s save from O’Neill and, with Cliftonville addressing the raggedness that had infected their game thereafter and the home side content with what they had, there was little further to report on a tough night for the Reds.

Cliftonville: Gartside, Addis, Gallagher (Casey, 46 mins), Rory Hale (C Curran, 46 mins), R Curran, McDonagh (Gormley, 64 mins), Lowe, Doherty, Turner, Ronan Hale, Moore. Unused subs: Talley, Robinson, Storey, Coates.