No half measures

Jim Magilton revealed that he sounded a half-time warning to his players during yesterday’s clash with Dungannon Swifts.

Aware that the visitors had staged unlikely comebacks against Larne and Coleraine already this season, he said it was vital for Cliftonville to build on the platform laid by Ben Wilson’s quickfire double.

Wilson duly completed his hat-trick early in the second-half before an eye-catching Joe Gormley strike extended the Reds’ advantage ahead of Sam Ashford emerging from the bench to claim his first goal for the Club.

“For the first 10 or 15 minutes, it was probably fifty-fifty and we were a little bit slow out of the blocks,” reflected Magilton.

“They’ve missed a great chance but once we scored, I thought we controlled the flow and the tempo of the game and created opportunities.

“For the second-half, we made the players aware this Dungannon team are resilient. They’ve come back, they’ve shown great resilience in other games and we made our players aware that we had to really attack the second-half right from the first whistle and we did that.

“Obviously, I’m delighted for Ben, delighted for Joe I’m over the moon for Sam Ashford to open his account here at Solitude.”

Wilson’s treble took the striker’s tally to 14 in as many appearances, leaving Magilton to add: “I’ve known him a long time and I always knew he had the attributes and the quality to score goals, it was a question of how quickly he could hit the ground running.

“He’s a fantastic fella, a brilliant lad and he’s a clinical finisher, so we’re chuffed to bits.”