O’Neill volley is scant consolation
CLIFTONVILLE steamrollered a lacklustre Dungannon Swifts outfit at Solitude to leapfrog Ballinamallard United in the standings and take top spot in the Danske Bank Premiership.
The Swifts, however, sit in ninth sport with twelve points from their dozen outings this season.
Darren Murphy was as impressed with Cliftonville as he was disillusioned with his own underperformers.
“We didn’t get going all afternoon,” he said. “Cliftonville are a quality side and I’ve absolutely no qualms or complaints about the scoreline because they won well and deservedly so.
“From my point of view, I’m asking questions about where our motivation, effort, fight and desire were.
“That sort of performance is nowhere near good enough.
“The players need to understand that sort of thing just isn’t acceptable to me or anyone else at the club.
“We have to improve and we have to do it very quickly.”
The Reds got off to the perfect start with Joe Gormley breaking the deadlock after latching onto Ciaran Caldwell’s 10th minute pass and Liam Boyce made it 2-0 just before the interval when Gormley’s clever pass set him up for the most simple of finishes.
Boyce bagged his second of the afternoon midway through the second-half when he beat Dungannon’s Adam McMinn to a long kick-out from Conor Devlin and, after creating space for himself with a drop of the shoulder, he confidently curled the ball home from just inside the area.
Goal of the day, however, is credited to Martin Donnelly, who made it 4-0 when he started and finished a delightful passing sequence that included telling contributions from Ronan Scannell, James Knowles, George McMullan and Gormley.
Dungannon managed to pull one back through a Stephen O’Neill volley eight minutes from time.
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Weather for Dungannon
Thursday 23 May 2013
Today
Light showers
Temperature: 4 C to 9 C
Wind Speed: 22 mph
Wind direction: North
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 5 C to 12 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North
