Irish Premiership: Late drama as Glens and Larne held to league draws

At Inver Park, Larne took the lead inside 10 minutes with their first goal in almost 300 minutes as O’Connor ended the goal drought that started after his winner at Carrick a fortnight ago.

He was quickest to react to Andy Ryan’s scuffed rebound from his blocked free-kick, was able to find space in the box and prodded the ball past Tadhg Ryan.

Both Dylan Sloan and Isaac Baird left the pitch with hamstring injuries, while O’Connor was thwarted by Ryan at his near post and Andy Ryan blazed over with a first-time effort after being teed up by sub Jordan McEneff.

The visitors, while playing some nice stuff, couldn’t trouble Rohan Ferguson in the first half.

That changed in a big way in the second half as Paddy McLaughlin’s men upped the tempo.

Ferguson made no fewer than four superb stops to keep his clean sheet. First he repelled Harry Murphy’s header before the pick of the bunch as he tipped Michael O’Connor’s long range effort on to the post.

The home stopper then kept out efforts from Len O’Sullivan and sub Paul McGovern with the latter being parried straight to Chris Atherton who should have levelled.

Larne had next to nothing going forward in the second half but just as it looked like the hosts would cling on, the Lurgan Blues found a deserved leveller in stoppage time. Ferguson made yet another save from Murphy but Toure slammed home the rebound to secure a well-deserved point.