Coleraine’s European hopes shattered as Cliftonville win Play-Off Final

Coleraine's European hopes came to a crushing end this afternoon as they suffered a 2-0 defeat to Cliftonville in the play-offs for European football.

Cliftonville opened up the scoresheet just over the half hour mark after Rory Hale finished the job from a rebound of Ryan Curran's attempt, giving them the lead going into the second half.

Things would only get worse for Coleraine from there on, 'keeper Max Little was shown a straight red card early in the second half for a poor challenge on Joe Gormley, and soon after Axel Piesold doubled Cliftonville's lead in the 66th minute, past substitute goakeeper Rory Brown.

Matthew Shevlin had a couple of half-chances, but the Cliftonville defence stood strong and shut down any hope of a late comeback, even with the 11 minutes of extra time, halting Coleraine from advancing into European football.