Lisburn Distillery edged themselves into the quarter finals of the CIS Cup with a hard fought draw against Larne at a sun drenched Inver Park.

The Whites made two changes to their team from last Saturdays victory against Glenavon with both Gareth McKeown and James Bell replacing Gary Spence and Francis Murphy.

The Whites started off in positive fashion with Damien McLaughlin sending a shot wide with barely a minute on the clock. On fifteen minutes Waterworth was fouled just outside the box, Paul Muir sent the resultant free kick straight at the Larne keeper Keenan. Both Hagan and Kilmartin were providing some probing crosses from both wings as the first half wore on, unfortunately the Distillery front men were unable to convert any of these chances.

Larne themselves were certainly not out out of the game with Philip Matthews having to be alert to block a point blank header from Kearney on twenty six minutes. As the first half continued it seemed that the Whites looked more content to play out for a draw as they had the more possession, without really troubling the Larne backline.

H/T 0-0

Lisburn Distillery started the second half in bright fashion with Gareth McKeown crossing from the right to find Andrew Waterworth who directed a powerful header wide when well placed to finish.

Unfortunately, against the run of play, Larne broke the deadlock on fifty-five minutes when the Larne number nine Chris O'Hare ran past several Distillery players to split open the defence for Pedro Delgado to side foot home past Matthews.

Distillery responded almost immediately with a McLaughlin shot being deflected wide at the other end. On sixty two minutes manager Paul Kirk responded to the Whites predicament by pulling off defender Stuart Thompson, to replace him with pacey forward John Martin. This change paid instant dividends with the Whites equalising on sixty-six minutes when McKeown delivered a deep cross from the right for Conor Hagan to sweep the ball home.

The home defence was now being stretched with Martin's pace causing all manner of problems. McLaughlin, Hagan, Bell and Kilmartin all missed chances for Distillery to take the lead, with John Martin himself being particularly unlucky when his long range lob over the keeper hit the crossbar on eighty six minutes. The Whites defence dealt comfortably with anything Larne threw at them and the team can now look forward to a quarter final tie against Cliftonville next month.

F/T 1-1