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Glentoran 1 - 3 Linfield

In Scott Young's first game since taking over from Alan McDonald as Glens boss this week, the east Belfast men failed to meet the expectations set by their new manager.

He had spoken during the week about bringing passion back to the team but there was no evidence of it as the Blues eased into the last four thanks to goals from Robert Garrett, Philip Lowry and Jamie Mulgrew.

Keith Gillespie scored what was little more than a consolation to the disappointing Glens.

The home team had started the better side and had the first chance of the game after five minutes when Alan Blayney had been forced into a save after Keith Gillespie had pulled the ball back for Richard Clarke to shoot from the edge of the box.

But Glentoran were rocked on 14 minutes when they fell behind to Garrett's strike.

Aaron Burns' cross wasn't cleared properly and with the ball falling to the Northern Ireland under 21 international, he had time to take a touch and blast home beyond Elliott Morris who should have done better.

On the half hour Gillespie broke the offside trap and latched onto a throughball from Sean Ward but his run towards goal was thwarted by Kris Lindsay's tackle.

And four minutes later Gary Hamilton found Gillespie with a great searching ball and the winger fired in a super cross but there was no one there to meet it.

That proved to be a brief period of pressure and just before the break the Glens found themselves further behind thanks to another Elliott Morris error.

The Glens keeper dropped a cross from Burns and Lowry took a touch before firing home from a few yards out.

Linfield put the seal on their win five minutes after the break when Mulgrew danced through the Glens defence with no-one tackling and shot into the bottom corner from the edge of the box.

Gillespie headed in a Jason Hill cross on 63 minutes to breathe a bit of life into the Glens challenge but with the crowd now lifted, they still couldn't manage to get back into it.

Colin Nixon fired a volley wide in the last few minutes and that would be as close as Young's side would come to another goal.

© UTV News