Far from three and easy, says Jim

Jim Magilton acknowledged that Cliftonville’s 3-0 victory over Institute in last night’s BetMcLean Cup tie at Solitude wasn’t quite as straightforward as the scoreline suggests.

Ahead early on through Ben Wilson, the Reds lived dangerously and survived a couple of scares during the first-half before an inch-perfect effort from Rory Hale doubled the advantage, with substitute Stephen Mallon putting the seal on things with 10 minutes to play.

Pleased to achieve the main objective of being in the hat for the second round, Magilton also heaped praise on the performance Kevin Deery’s visitors produced.

“It was obviously important we got into the next round and that’s the main thing,” he said.

“We scored early again and I think we went a bit flat. But credit to Stute, I thought they passed the ball well and were all very tidy on the ball. Kevin has them playing and they came here to play.

“Three-nil sounds convincing but it didn’t feel that way. Credit where credit’s due, I thought Institute played very well.

“I was more nervous in the first-half, no question, because they played well and we gave up opportunities. I thought in the second-half against Loughgall on Saturday, we were better organised, looked more threatening and gave up less opportunities. Here, once we scored, we gave them too much room to play and they created good opportunities but didn’t take them.

“Again, we started better in the second-half and I thought we had control of the game without creating too much before we got a fantastic goal from Rory and then obviously Stevie takes his opportunity really well.”

On Mallon’s strike – his first for the Club, coming in the week he ended a lengthy spell out injured – Magilton added: “I’m really, really pleased for him. To have 13 months of not playing football, not being sure what’s going to happen, maybe not even sure if you’ll be coming back – to come through that and be on the pitch again, scoring a goal, we’re all absolutely chuffed to bits for him

“It was great to get more minutes in his legs and he takes his goal really, really well.”