Coleraine’s loss to Cliftonville was arguably the biggest result of the weekend in an action-packed round of games in the NIFL Premiership.
Friday night set the tone with Dungannon Swifts recording a hard-fought 1-0 win over Glentoran at The Oval, while Larne were 2-1 winners over Glenavon.
The former means back-to-back defeats for the Glens while Rodney McAree’s Swifts move up to fourth in the table.
While Larne were strongly fancied to beat Glenavon at home, they had to come from behind to defeat the Lurgan Blues, who remain rooted to the bottom of the table, 10 points adrift of Carrick Rangers.
They were beaten 2-1 at home by Portadown, but Glenavon should be concerned as the Gers have three games in hand to potentially open up an even bigger gap.
Linfield edged out Bangor 1-0 at Clandeboye Park with Matthew Fitzpatrick recording the decisive strike on 55 minutes, to keep the Blues in contention at the top of the table.
The only draw of the weekend’s games in the NIFL Premiership came at the Showgrounds as Ballymena United and Crusaders played out an entertaining 2-2 stalemate.
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Let’s take a look back at an epic weekend in the #SportsDirectPrem 🏟️ pic.twitter.com/hGr9MSvQrV
— NI Football League (@OfficialNIFL) November 24, 2025
Four-way NIFL Premiership title race
Cliftonville’s 1-0 success over Coleraine was secured thanks to a first-half strike from Rory Hale, moving the Reds up into the top half of the table.
The Bannsiders will be disappointed to have left North Belfast empty-handed, but it points to the competitive nature of the league, in what is shaping up to be a four-way title race in the NIFL Premiership.
Coleraine are still the pace setters, but that could change on Tuesday night when they take on Larne.
The Inver Reds are just one point behind, with two games in hand over Ruaidhri Higgins’ side. The Derry man spoke at length earlier in the season about the privilege of being tasked to lead Coleraine to the top.
Glentoran sit in third place, three points behind Larne with the same number of games played, while David Healy’s Linfield are fourth, four points behind the Glens but with three games in hand over Coleraine.
It’s no surprise that the four full-time clubs are pulling away from the rest in the NIFL Premiership title race, but hopefully they can continue to play out an exciting four-way contest in the weeks and months to come.
The two games in midweek carry a lot of importance, ahead of a further six rounds of games in the NIFL Premiership before the turn of the year.
Image credit: officialnifl/X
