Crockett's shot on the half hour mark was easily gathered by McDonald after a good left wing cross by Pattison had provided the shooting opportunity. At the other end Topley's 20 yard free kick was held by Hassan and he was able to launch a quick counter attack which ended with Devlin lifting his shot over the Glenavon bar.

In the 34th minute Walsh provided a pinpoint cross that was cleared with Withnell looking likely to head the home side into the lead. Two minutes later Hyndes burst into the box and went down under a challenge but the referee was unimpressed. Five minutes later, though, the Blues did take the lead when Topley flicked on McDonald's clearance kick and Withnell used his strength to force his way past the defender and finish with a powerful shot from close range.

Early in the second half Withnell spurned two good chances to double the lead when he pushed Topley's cross wide of the post and steered a free header wide.

Chines then came off the bench to replace Candlish and within five minutes the Portuguese player had scored his first competitive goal for Glenavon. McCloskey won the ball on the left and fed it infield to Topley who laid on a great through ball into the box. Chines outpaced the defenders and calmly stroked a left foot shot across the keeper and into the far corner of the net.

Tobermore looked to respond immediately and McDonald had to make a good save to deny Ryan McCreadie with Lamont putting the follow-up well wide. The Glenavon keeper will want to forget his next 'contribution' though as he allowed Loughran's 30 yard free kick to slip under his body after he seemingly had it covered. This could have resulted in a nervous final quarter of an hour but in fact Glenavon could have scored a couple more with Hawe laying Walsh's deep corner back across the 6 yard area where Withnell just failed to get a touch and Chines must have thought he had scored his second when he met Reid's cross at the near post with a point blank header that Hassan somehow saved.