Tone up

Jim Magilton was delighted with the early tone Cliftonville set in last night’s County Antrim Shield quarter-final victory over Linfield.

The Reds progressed to a last-four tussle with Ballymena United courtesy of a 4-1 victory that the Manager felt owed much to the example provided by front pairing Ryan Curran and Eric McWoods.

Rory Hale opened the scoring with a firm blast with 12 minutes on the clock and, after Keevan Hawthorne doubled Cliftonville’s advantage, a Callumn Morrison reply on the stroke of half-time threatened to derail home hopes only for Curran and Tom Lavery to add their names to the scoresheet in the aftermath of Blues skipper Chris McKee being sent off for a crude challenge on Hale.

“Hopefully it’s a massive confidence boost,” said Magilton.

“From minute one until we finished the game, I thought we were really aggressive in all aspects of our game. We caused Linfield problems and our front two started that, they set the tone and that spread through the whole team.

“Hopefully this is the start of something. You just never know, but it’s all about confidence, it’s all about momentum and it’s all about belief. I know we have good players and sometimes it just needs a game like this just to reinforce that thought and hopefully tonight’s the start of something.”

While he revealed that the hamstring injury which forced Sean Robertson off after just 19 minutes “doesn’t look a good one”, Magilton underlined the importance of his side maintaining focus and standards following a flurry of activity in the closing stages of the first-half.

“We talked at half-time about continuing the tempo and the flow, which we did, and then when you score two goals, it eases that and takes that worry away,” he added.

“It was also important to get people minutes on the pitch because it’s a long season. People do get a little bit carried away with everything. I’m the first to recognise our standards haven’t not been where they should be and we haven’t played particularly well in games. But when you play Linfield in a Cup competition and win the game, it’s a massive plus.”