Kieran Offord celebrates his first-half Crusaders goal at The OvalPacemaker

Kieran Offord's rather bizarre goal earned Crusaders victory over Glentoran as the Irish Premiership season got under way at The Oval

Mark Strange
BBC Sport NI contributor

The Declan Caddell era at Crusaders officially got underway with a 1-0 victory over Glentoran in the Irish Premiership season opener at The Oval.

Kieran Offord's first-half goal was enough in a game high on effort but low on quality.

A defensive mix-up from Glentoran gifted the St Mirren loanee a debut goal as he took advantage to score the first goal of the Caddell reign and the new season.

Glentoran had plenty of the ball but clear-cut chances were hard to come by as Declan Devine's men were left frustrated.

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The game started off without much of a bang as both sides were feeling their way into the new season.

There were clearly some nerves at the back for Glentoran with a new goalkeeper and centre-half partnership and, on 22 minutes, Crusaders took advantage.

Goalkeeper Daniel Gyollai wanted too much time on the ball which Offord did not afford him.

The Crusaders debutant charged down an attempted clearance and pounced to slide into the empty net when the spin on the ball evaded Harry Murphy in rather comical circumstances.

You couldn't say that Crusaders were dominating but the hosts were struggling to threaten.

Their best chance of the first half came just before the break when Philip Lowry cleared Wassim Aouachria's header off the line.

The second half was a largely disjointed affair as Glentoran's shaky defence almost came back to bite them again.

Just before the hour mark, Harry Franklin robbed Frankie Hvid but was well denied one-on-one by Gyollai.

Declan Devine rolled the dice shortly after and introduced last year's Championship Player of the Year Jordan Jenkins and he almost nicked an equaliser but was denied well by a Robbie Weir block.

Glentoran kept on pushing with Charlie Lindsay and Paddy McClean both coming close as Crusaders retreated yet held on for the first three points of the season.

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