Jim Magilton feels 'really poor decision' cost Cliftonville during Premiership defeat to Larne

With the score still level in the first half, Curran appeared to have headed the visitors in front before his effort was ruled out for offside, much to the frustration of Cliftonville’s supporters and players.

Dylan Sloan, who signed a new long-term contract extension with Larne on Friday morning, handed the Inver Reds a lead moments after the break and then doubled their advantage in the closing stages.

It means Gary Haveron’s side are now five matches unbeaten in the Premiership and leapfrogged Cliftonville into fifth, closing the gap on leaders Linfield to 16 points – they’ve still played four games fewer – ahead of David Healy’s side facing Carrick Rangers at Windsor Park on Saturday afternoon.

Magilton’s men, who lost Ronan Doherty to Coleraine on Friday, have now suffered four consecutive league defeats and the former Northern Ireland international was left furious with the officiating call.

"It was a really poor decision not to give the Ryan Curran goal,” Magilton told BBC Sport NI. “For the life of me I can’t understand why it wasn’t a goal.

"They’re trying to say he’s offside...nobody from Larne complained, not that they would, but there were no hands going up for offside or anything like that, which happens when players are confident it’s offside.

"I thought it was a really poor decision and going in at half-time it would have been just rewards for the way we played.

"When you try and address it with the officials it’s not even ‘let me have a look at it, let me have a conversation’, we’ll not get anything back and it’s pointless me speaking to anybody because nobody ever returns your calls.

"It’s not crying over spilled milk, it’s just a really poor decision and it’s cost us.”

It was a night to remember for 20-year-old Sloan, who only scored his first goal of the season in Tuesday’s win over Crusaders at Seaview before adding another two in front of home support.

"Tuesday was my first goal in about a year or so and now I've scored again so that will get my confidence up," he said. "Performance wise I thought we did well in some ways, and we had to dig deep.

"Cliftonville had decent possession during the game, but I thought we controlled it off the ball as well so hopefully we can kick on from here.

"We've been lacking quality at times the last couple of months but we have scored five in the month of January so far so we will just have to take that onto the next game.

"We have a lot of games in hand and we have to realistically go into those and win all of them if we want to win the league for the third time in a row. Linfield are well ahead so we still have a lot to do but hopefully we can catch them."