Cliftonville v Dungannon Swifts

Dungannon Swifts 3 - 1 Cliftonville
24 Feb 2024 - 15:00Stangmore Park, Dungannon

Cliftonville fell to a potentially damaging defeat to Dungannon Swifts at Stangmore Park this afternoon.

David Odumosu’s outrageous early save from Thomas Maguire was part of a warning sign that wasn’t heeded because, from the resulting corner, Maguire rose to nod the hosts in front.

Though it took a much-changed Reds side a little while to find their rhythm, when they did get going, they created a number of promising openings and came close to levelling through Paddy Burns, Joe Gormley, Odhran Casey and Ronan Hale.

Frustrated and possibly perplexed not to have levelled before half-time, Cliftonville were gifted an equaliser when Chris Curran seized on an error from goalkeeper Alex Henderson to find the net and, from that point, it seemed the Reds were the most likely team to go on and win the game.

Unfortunately, though, their momentum was slowly but surely eradicated and the Swifts duly restored their lead through a confident finish from Ben Gallagher and then, with the away side committing numbers forward, Dungannon bagged a third when James Knowles was on hand to head in after Odumosu and Kris Lowe had made goal-line interventions.