IRISH LEAGUE: Pressure is on Crusaders now says Linfield's Lowry

Striker Andy Waterworth took the plaudits after scoring his 100th goal for the Blues, but it was Lowry who directed the operation from the middle of the park.

He was rewarded when he banged in his team’s fourth of the day -- the result helping David Healy’s boys cut the gap to four points on table topping Crusaders.

The Shore Road boys, however, have the chance to again extend their advantage when they host Ballinamallard United tonight.

Cameron Stewart, Kirk Millar and Aaron Burns were also on the mark for the dominant home side, while Guillaume Keke replied for Ards, who at no time looked capable of ending a horrible 31 year hoodoo of never having won at the international venue.

“It was nice to see the gap cut for a change,” said Lowry. “Crusaders took their chance to extend their lead to 10 points last week as we didn’t play Cliftonville until Monday. Now the roles are reversed - and we’ve managed to make our advantage count.

“They’ll be big favourites to beat Ballinamallard United, make no mistake about that. But I’m sure psychologically they’ll be thinking about it. We talked about it last week.

“They were 10 points ahead, so it put an extra bit of pressure on us for the Cliftonville match. The pressure is now on them.”

Lowry, who banged in his 11th goal of the season against Ards, has been inspirational in his team’s push for the title.

He added: “I’m happy enough with my own form . . . . and it’s nice I’m starting to add a few goals to my game. I’ve managed to find the net 11 times . . . and I missed quite a few games early on due to injury. Four penalties are included in my total, but I still have to put them away.

“I’m past my personal best for any season -- I once hit nine for Coleraine .We still believe this title race is far from over. We believe we can catch Crusaders. The manager plays a big part in that too.

“David never gets ahead of himself. Even today, we’ve won 5-1, but he still wasn’t happy. And, I know what he means because we missed loads of chances. We could have really scored 10 goals.

“The next two league are massive as the Crues have to face my old club Coleraine and then come to Windsor. That will give us a fair indication of where we are.

“We now have possibly eight up finals ahead of us for the rest of the season.”

Ards boss Colin Nixon admitted his team’s naive defending cost them dearly.

“You can’t come to Windsor Park and defend like we did,” he said. “When Linfield took the lead, we dug ourselves back into the game. But we switched off. It was a long road back after the goal we conceded in first half injury time. Sloppy goals have been our achilles heels this season, it’s something we have to address.

“Our performances haven’t been bad, but we give away too many silly goals -- we capitulated all too easy, especially in the second half which was disappointing.

“We didn’t do enough over the 90 minutes. We are still not safe in terms of the relegation play-off spot. Carrick have now pulled three points back on and and there has been a big shift in the goal difference. It’s going to be a battle right to the end. We now face a difficult game against Glenavon.”