Soccer

Glentoran counting down the games in Irish Cup defence

Glentoran’s Ruaidhrí Donnelly celebrates his winner against Cliftonville at the Oval on Saturday Picture by Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker
Glentoran’s Ruaidhrí Donnelly celebrates his winner against Cliftonville at the Oval on Saturday Picture by Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Glentoran’s Ruaidhrí Donnelly celebrates his winner against Cliftonville at the Oval on Saturday Picture by Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Irish Cup second round: Glentoran 1 Cliftonville 0

GLENTORAN continued their Irish Cup defence with a second round win over Cliftonville on Saturday and assistant manager Paul Millar is counting down the games to ultimate victory.

A second-half header from Ruaidhrí Donnelly was just about enough to see the Glens past the challenge of their Danske Bank Premiership rivals, but Millar was adamant the best team won.

“I think the win was well deserved. The first-half, we totally bossed it, the second-half Cliftonville came out a bit and had two or three chances, but I still think it was a thoroughly deserved victory,” he said.

“First and foremost when we [the management team] came in, we said we wanted to win a trophy for Glentoran and we’ve lost two games in 2021. So we’ve been playing really, really well. But three wins to get the Irish Cup retained and bring it back to the Oval.”

Former Red Donnelly could have had a double on Saturday if it wasn’t for a first-half effort being ruled out for an alleged high foot by referee Andrew Davey. While Millar was furious with the decision at the time, he has become more philosophical on reflection.

“I couldn’t believe it at the time, it looked like there was nobody near him [Donnelly] at all and, usually if you see the reaction of the other team, they didn’t claim for it but I wanted to speak to the referee at half-time, he didn’t want to speak to me,” he added.

“I did apologise to him [Davey] after the match because I had a look at it again and there was somebody close to him. But also five minutes later, one of our players goes to head it in the middle of the park and one of their players puts his foot up and it wasn’t a free-kick so I just thought it was strange.”

The Glens now face Crusaders in their quarter-final tomorrow night following the Shore Road men’s 5-0 win over Knockbreda and Millar knows it gets no easier from here on in.

“Crusaders will be tough… I think our last seven games have been three Coleraines, Linfield, Cliftonville twice, Larne and it’ll be Crusaders now, so a really, really tough schedule,” he said.

“There’s no respite, there’s no ‘we’ll try to rest a couple of players here and bring a couple in,’ we can’t. But it’s credit to the boys and their fitness levels, they keep going, you could see today they went right to the death. In the second-half, I thought they were brilliant.”

Elsewhere on Saturday, Larne set up an all-east Antrim quarter-final tie with Carrick Rangers with an 8-1 hammering of Dollingstown at Inver Park. Carrick didn’t have it as easy against Bangor as they were taken to penalties after a 2-2 draw at Taylor’s Avenue, which they eventually won 3-1.

West Tyrone club Dergview made it into the quarter-finals with a 2-0 win over St James’ Swifts at Darragh Park. Their reward is a trip to Ballymena United tomorrow night, who hit the PSNI for five at the Showgrounds on Saturday.

Loughgall will host Danske Bank Premiership champions-elect Linfield in tomorrow’s other quarter-final after the north Armagh men defeat Warrenpoint by a goal to nil at Lakeview. David Healy’s Blues beat fellow Premiership side Dungannon Swifts 5-2 in an entertaining game at Windsor Park.

Irish Cup quarter-finals (tomorrow, 7.45pm): Ballymena United v Dergview, Glentoran v Crusaders, Larne v Carrick Rangers, Loughgall v Linfield