Bally tough to take

Cliftonville 0-1 Ballymena United

Cliftonville were sucker-punched by a well organised Ballymena United side in this afternoon’s Sports Direct Premiership encounter at Solitude.

Despite bossing territory from start to finish, the Reds went down to an Andy Scott strike on 70 minutes and were left to rue their failure to make the most of gilt-edged first-half openings that saw both Arran Pettifer and Rory Hale off target with headers.

Cliftonville: Odumosu, Pepper (Donnelly, 68 mins), Addis (Doherty, 46 mins), Newberry, Pettifer (Curran, 60 mins), Kearney, Hale, Conlan, Gormley, Glynn, Steven. Unused subs: Ridd, Piesold, Markey, Casey.