Irish Premiership: Larne beat Glentoran as Linfield and Crusaders win

Larne have moved one point behind Irish Premiership leaders Cliftonville with a 1-0 win at Glentoran, as Northern Ireland winger Niall McGinn made his debut for the struggling Oval side.

Crusaders defeated Newry City 3-1 and Coleraine beat lowly Portadown 4-1.

Ballymena United battled past Dungannon Swifts 2-0 in Saturday’s fifth match.

The top five in the Irish Premiership – Cliftonville, Larne, Linfield, Crusaders and Coleraine – are separated by just six points following Saturday’s fixtures.

Lee Bonis’ header in the 63rd minute was enough to secure all three points for Larne and to move them within one point of Cliftonville.

Striker Bonis got the final touch on an inviting Aaron Donnelly cross to heap further misery onto Mick McDermott’s men, who were punished for wasting two golden chances in the first half as boos rang out around the Oval at full-time.

Larne started off the stronger side in the first half but it was debutant McGinn, on his first Irish Premiership appearance since 2007, who nearly got his Glentoran career off to a dream start but the Northern Ireland international blazed well over at the back post from Jay Donnelly’s well-weighted pass.

Donnelly had a chance of his own to score minutes later. McGinn spotted the run of forward Donnelly but his first-time shot inside the six-yard box went wide of Rohan Ferguson’s near post.

Bonis made the breakthrough and Leroy Millar had chances to further extend Larne’s lead as he struck the bar and went close when one-on-one with Aaron McCarey, only to be denied by the stopper.

Glentoran never looked like getting an equaliser and their miserable form now stands at one league win in their last 10.

Linfield put on second half show

Linfield scored five second-half goals to run out 6-1 winners away to Glenavon and find their shooting boots ahead of Tuesday’s County Antrim Shield final with Larne.

Andrew Clarke struck in the sixth minute after Glenavon failed to deal with a corner, but the hosts were back on level terms within 15 minutes through a wonderful Conor McCloskey volley.

It was level at half-time, but from there it was one-way traffic. Sam Roscoe pounced on some indecision among the Glenavon defence to poke the ball home on the 52nd minute.

Five minutes later, Eetu Vertainen got a deft touch on a driven cross by Clarke to make it three.

Linfield were awarded two penalties, one for a foul in the area and the other for handball, both of which were dispatched into the same corner by Chris Shields.

Debutant Max Haygarth rounded out the win as he grabbed a goal on his debut moments after coming off the bench.

Forsythe scores stunner as Crues beat Newry

The deadlock was broken at Seaview in the 31st minute when Jarlath O’Rourke pass found Jordan Owens, who nodded the ball into the path of Dean Ebbe with his header from close range finding the back of the net.

Owens’ diving header doubled Crusaders lead after the 33-year-old connected with Jordan Forsythe’s well-timed pass.

Newry got one back when Declan Carville was brought down in the box and the substitute made no mistake with the resulting spot kick, sending keeper Jonathan Tuffey the wrong way.

The north Belfast side restored the two-goal cushion in some style when Jordan Forsythe noticed keeper Steven Maguire was off his line, and tried his luck from near the halfway line, with the inch perfect strike finding the back of the net.

Coleraine kept pace with the leading pack with a thumping 4-1 win over Portadown at The Showgrounds.

The league’s bottom club shocked their hosts with a Gregory Moorhouse goal in the 12th minute, who nipped in to score past Martin Gallagher.

However, Coleraine hit back through first-half goals from Rodney Brown, Matthew Shevlin and Conor McKendry.

Brown volleyed home from close range midway through the half before Shevlin put Coleraine ahead with his 14th league goal of the season before the excellent McKendry added a third.

A fourth goal, Michael McCrudden’s third in as many games, less than ten minutes after the restart completed the scoring and another miserable afternoon for Niall Currie’s side.

Ballymena see off Swifts

Ballymena United moved back into seventh place in the table after beating Dungannon Swifts 2-0 at the Showgrounds.

Both goalkeepers – Ballymena’s Sean O’Neill and Dwayne Nelson of Dungannon – were called into action in the first half but Ballymena broke the deadlock on 52 minutes when David McDaid was bundled over by Ethan McGee just as he was about to shoot and Andy McGrory rifled the resultant penalty straight up the middle.

Dungannon dominated possession in the second period but their best chance came when Rhyss Campbell’s shot ricocheted to the luckless Ben Cushnie who diverted it over.

With Dungannon throwing men forward, Ballymena hit them on the counter-attack five minutes into stoppage time when Jordan Gibson rolled the ball across the face of goal for McDaid to sweep home.