Glenn Ferguson fired the Blues in front on nine minutes when he made the most of an error in the Glentoran defence to keep his composure and fire into the top right hand corner of James Taylor's goal.

But, three minutes later, the visitors might have levelled when young defender Aaron Burns conceded a spot-kick only for Colin Nixon to fire the resultant penalty straight at Alan Mannus.

It proved to be a costly miss when, on the stroke of half-time, Ferguson doubled Linfield's lead with a right-foot volley after Robert Garrett floated a cross over from the right flank.

And the Glens squandered another chance early in the second half when Gary Hamilton got on the end of a Michael Halliday cross from the left only to miss from a matter of yards.

The game was put beyond doubt, though, on 61 minutes when Damien Curran chested down a Garrett cross before volleyed a stunning effort into the bottom right hand corner.

Unfortunately the game was stopped with 20 minutes remaining following crowd disturbances for a period of around seven minutes.

On the resumption of order two-goal hero Ferguson was stretchered off following an injury to a standing ovation from the home fans while Garrett was dismissed three minutes into stoppage for dissent.