Glenavon forged the first chance in the 3^rd minute with a quick break but McKnight seemed to choose the wrong option when he tried to slide the ball into O’Connor’s run with McVeigh looking better placed. Newry’s Damien Whitehead almost opened the scoring in the 10^th minute when he crashed a powerful shot off the underside of the bar after Ferguson played him in down the left. Robbie Farrell should have done better four minutes later when Gerard McMahon’s cross picked him out at the back post but he somehow managed to steer his header wide.

Twenty minutes in Aidan McVeigh latched onto McAllister’s under hit back header and, with the veteran defender pulling him back, broke into the box and forced Robinson to make a decent save to turn the ball round the post. Clarke then surged past the Glenavon defence and saw his deflected cross miss-kicked 8 yards out by Ferguson. Ferguson almost made amends immediately when he seized on the clearance but his shot crashed back of the base of the upright.

In the 28^th minute Andy McDonald flapped at Damien Curran’s right wing corner and the ball landed at the feet of Whitehead. He stroked a low shot through a crowded box with Montgomery standing on the line unable to keep it out. Newry doubled the lead from another Curran corner with Whitehead adding his second when he turned quickly to pounce on the ball after it spun up from Crawford’s miss-hit shot, with McDonald rooted to his line.

Glenavon made a positive start to the second half but McKnight wasted a great early opportunity when, put through one-on-one with the keeper by Farrell’s pass, he put an attempted chip well wide. Minutes later Glenavon had a blatant penalty ignored by the referee, Mr Penney, when Barry Curran clearly pushed Paul Evans as he raced into the box and was about to strike Farrell's low cross. Glenavon did grab a lifeline in the 68^th minute when McVeigh got the ball into his feet on the edge of the Newry area, spun away from his marker and fired a great left foot curler into the top corner.

Whitehead seemed to have killed the game off when he completed his hat trick five minutes from time, heading Barry Curran’s cross back from beyond the far post with the ball somehow squeezing between McDonald and his near post. McVeigh restored some hope, though, when he grabbed his second goal in the 89th minute; striking a powerful right foot volley past Robinson after a cross had spun up off the head of McLaughlin. The drama surged even higher in the last seconds of normal time when McAllister pulled down Campbell just inside the Newry box. McMahon struck the penalty well but Robinson, diving high to this right, pulled off a fantastic save to send Newry through to the Quarter Finals and leaving Glenavon still desperate to end what has now become a seven game losing streak.