Cliftonville’s ‘guts and togetherness’ were key to end Boxing Day hoodoo: Jim Magilton
Cliftonville’s Ben Wilson celebrates scoring the winning goal against Crusaders
Rory Hale scored Cliftonville's first against Crusaders
Jim Magilton said “guts and togetherness” got Cliftonville over the line after they finally ended their Boxing Day derby hoodoo at Solitude.
Ben Wilson’s 75th minute finish earned the Reds a first festive home win over Crusaders since 2012 and left Magilton saluting the spirit that his players summoned up in a game that they were never really on top of.
The Crues started brightly and, even after falling behind against the run of play when Rory Hale claimed to have got a deft touch to Wilson’s curling cross, stuck to their task before deservedly levelling when Lloyd Anderson plundered an equaliser early in the second-half.
Stephen Baxter’s side looked the most likely to triumph from there and Jordan Owens – who had minutes earlier clattered his own crossbar — came closest to winning it with a powerful header that drew goalkeeper David Odumosu into action.
Magilton sprung Chris Curran, Sam Ashford and Sean Stewart from the bench on 67 minutes and their introduction was key in swinging the pendulum in Cliftonville’s direction before the winning goal arrived when Owens inadvertently nudged a Chris Gallagher free-kick towards his own goal and Wilson pounced to convert from virtually on the goal-line.
“Whilst I want us to play a certain way, and the players have bought into that and been brilliant, today we had to show another side of ourselves — and that was character and guts and a real determined team effort,” said Magilton.
“Even the lads coming off the bench, it was just an all round fantastic team performance without being at our absolute brilliant footballing best because the Crues were
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