Europa League playoff final: Cliftonville 2-0 Glentoran [aet]

Joe Gormley and Conor McMenamin scored in extra time to beat Glentoran and send Cliftonville into the Europa League.

Their playoff final at Solitude was the last game of the Danske Bank Premiership season, with the Reds booking their place on the continent, and bagging £200,000 prize money.

The North Belfast club will now go into the preliminary round, with games getting under way in late June.

In a busy opening period for the Glens, Darren Murray dragged an early shot wide, and Curtis Allen just strayed offside before testing Neeson with a close-range header, before McMenamin registered Cliftonville's first shot on goal in the 11th.

The Glens remained on the front foot, but couldn't make it count with John Heron shooting narrowly over, and then Robbie McDaid rushing his finish, firing over the bar after stealing possession from Jamie Harney.

10 minutes before the break the tension finally boiled over, Reds centre-back Harney part of a huge brawl in the Glens box, and as a result both he and Marcus Kane were shown yellow cards.

Early in the second half, Cliftonville had a great chance when the ball pinged around the box before dropping to Ryan Curran, but his shot was clawed around the post by Nelson.

The momentum swung in favour of the home side as the second half continued, but they struggled to create clear chances, with the best chance falling to Ryan Curran who shot over the bar just past the hour.

In the 85th minute, Glentoran were presented with a rare chance when Kane's cross ran all the way to Allen, but he blazed a volley miles over the bar from around 10 yards. 3 minutes later, the Reds had a similar chance, but it was the same outcome for Joe Gorman, his effort nowhere near the target.

Into extra time, both sides had chances in the first period, Liam Bagnall blasting wide from distance for the Reds, with Harney then needing to fly into a block to stop Paul McMahon tapping into the net for Glentoran.

However it was just before the interval that Gormley nipped in ahead of Dwayne Nelson after the keeper rushed out, with the ball just about having the pace on it to trickle over the line.

The goal seemed to kill any lingering Glentoran optimism, and the game was put beyond any doubt with a minute to go when McMenamin robbed possession before racing through to dink the ball over Nelson.