Jonny Addis lofted a free-kick towards the edge of the box and Stephen O’Donnell was unable to deal with the resulting flick-on, resulting in Ronan Doherty sending a volley through the grasp of Deane and into the net for the midfielder's second league goal of the season.Ĭhris Gallagher could have made it three from Ronan Hale’s lay-off, but the midfielder's strike took a deflection and was smothered by Gareth Deane. It was Cliftonville who would double their lead a few minutes before the midway point in the half. Joe Gormley raced onto a through ball down the channel from Ryan Curran and returned the ball to his attacking partner to bend an effort into the bottom corner and make it 1-0.ĭean Jarvis tried a speculative lob that Nathan Gartside was equal to and on the quarter-hour mark, the Reds’ goalkeeper came out to get a fist on Lee Lynch’s corner. O’Hara made six changes to the side that featured in their 2-0 defeat to Linfield 10 days previous.Īmongst those returning to the starting 11 were captain Chris Curran and Levi Ives, who made his first start since picking up a thigh injury against Portadown back in February.Ĭliftonville drew first blood just four minutes into the semi-final clash. Good morning 🌍 🆚 countdown begins for the European Playoff Final. It was hard to get the boys up and motivated and we knew tonight that we had to get them, we did, and it just proved in the result.” Six weeks ago, we were challenging (for the league) and we hit a blip. “I’m delighted for them because we’ve been on a bad run at the minute.
Our energy levels and busyness on and off the ball were different class tonight.
“The last 10 days, we’ve worked a lot on the training ground, and they did what we asked them tonight and that’s all I can ask for. At the final whistle, I was delighted for the boys because they put so much work into the game tonight. “To go 2-0 up and we were in the game, we knew that Coleraine were going to come at us - they are a good side. “I think it’s a feeling of both joy and relief,” O’Hara admitted. Oran Kearney’s side were unable to hit back and force a fifth 2-2 draw between the sides this season as the Reds held out to book their place in the decider on Saturday evening, much to the delight of interim boss Declan O’Hara who admitted the feeling was one of joy and relief.
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