Irish Premiership: Cliftonville move to within a point of leaders with comfortable win

Cliftonville are now just a point off the top of the Irish Premiership table after a comfortable 1-0 win over Warrenpoint Town at Solitude.

A Luke Turner goal on the stroke of half time won it for the third-placed Reds and closed the gap on leaders Linfield and second-placed Glentoran, who are level on 59 points.

Young Town keeper Stephen McMullan made a number of excellent saves.

Defeat for the visitors meant they missed the chance to move off bottom.

Barry Gray's basement side went into the match two points behind 11th-placed Portadown and hoping to end a lengthy period in bottom place.

They were forced to defend for the majority of the match during which they barely created any clear-cut goalscoring opportunities.

Turner's decisive goal arrived in the 43rd minute from a well-worked Cliftonville corner that was played quickly to Jamie McDonagh, whose perfectly weighted cross was met by Ryan Curran.

His header hit the crossbar, with McMullan possibly getting a hand to it as well, and Turner reacted quickest to the rebound to bundle home what proved to be the winner, having earlier had a goal ruled out for offside.

Paddy McLaughlin's men had already gone close a number of times to opening the scoring, with McDonagh drifting in from the right to meet a Rory Hale cross but his downward header was superbly saved by McMullan.

McDonagh then hit the crossbar with a 25-yard strike during a half in which Hale and Daniel Kearns had also gone close.

The second half followed a similar script to the first, with the Reds in control and creating chances but unable to take them.

Joe Gormley came off the bench and had a shot on the angle saved, missed a close-range header and had a goal disallowed for offside as the home side searched for a second goal that in the end they did not need.