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Match Report · Joined: 25 Oct 2006 Posts: 64

U-18 v 2nd Lurgan
(7-a-side, League Stage)
21/11/2006

This was the U-18’s first match for 6 weeks, and was therefore important to get points on the board. This was especially important as Lurgan were not at full strength as they were missing some of their key players.

Knocknamuckley looked a bit rusty to begin with, hanging on to the ball too long and not playing their normal passing game.

Lurgan took the lead when some very sloppy defence allowed Lurgan a break away, with far too many Muckley players caught upfield. This left Seth Mathers with no chance, as the Lurgan forward had all the time in the world to pick his spot and slot it comfortably past the keeper.

This seemed to wake Muckley up, and they managed to strike back immediately. Jon Henderson received the ball after an excellent run, and good work from Andrew Irwin. After a good first touch Jon equalised with an excellent finish.

Instead of Muckley pushing on from here they were caught again with some sloppy defending, when one ball split the defence easily. A well struck shot was covered by Seth, when the ball took a wicked deflection directing it into the top corner.

Muckley had been playing too narrow, and any attacks were proving ineffective. A switch that moved Hendo inside, to the centre of the midfield, with Greg Harrison moving out right seemed to do the trick, with Jon directing the play, and Greg using the width of the pitch to stretch the defence.

Again the equaliser came when Irwin turned on a long ball to fire into the bottom corner, to keep his run of goals going, and to get Muckley back on level terms.

Unfortunately Hendo had to be brought off when he was playing very well, running the midfield. An aerial collision left him with a knock leaving him unable to carry on.

However, Hendo’s replacement, Graeme Jardine, had an immediate effect when he nipped in to stab the ball home, taking it off Irwin’s toe, to put Muckley ahead for the first time.

On the stroke of half time their lead was extended when Harrison beat his man on the outside to fire into the top of the net with a wonderful strike, leaving the goalkeeper with no chance.

Half time 1st Knocknamuckley 4 v 2 2nd Lurgan

Early in the second half Jardine got his second with a close range effort to put Muckley 5-2 up. The goal before the half time whistle really seemed to affect Lurgan, especially due to their understrength team, and the fifth added to their sense of deflation.

After this, the goals didn’t stop and the second half was an extremely one-sided affair.

Drew Gardiner scored with a well placed free-kick which scraped the base of the keeper’s left hand post on its way into the net. This was followed by Harrison adding to his tally for the game.

In a rare Lurgan attack, Muckley’s keeper, Mathers, gathered the ball. Kicking out of hand, he decided to play a long ball to the front men to test their goalkeeper under the high ball. The ball dropped just beyond the strikers, and the keeper who had inched towards the ball wasn’t close enough to deal with it before the bounce. The ball bounced and looped its way over the back-pedalling goalie. The keeper tried to get a hand to it but the ball landed in the goal to the teams delight, as Seth got his name on the scoresheet for the first time.

The smallest player on the pitch scored the ninth with his head. A great left wing cross from Harrison picked out Stephen Russell, who tucked the ball away with a neat header.

Gardiner added his second, and the scoring was finally rounded up by Jardine, to complete his hat-trick in his first game of the season.

Despite a very convincing win, nobody should get carried away; if this team intend to have a shot at winning this competition, they will have to improve. Despite some good shooting, the second half did not pose much of a problem to creating chances, and passing will need to improve in order to carve out chances in future games. Also, to concede two goals to a team missing a large number of its better players was disappointing, the defending will need to be much more disciplined, as against full strength opposition you cannot expect to concede two goals and win the game.

Having said that- having not played in six weeks, this was a very good win and shows a lot of promise for future matches.

Full time 1st Knocknamuckley 11 v 2 2nd Lurgan

Team- Mathers, Gardiner, Duprey, Harrison, Madine, Henderson, A. Irwin; Jardine, Russell

Goals- Henderson, A. Irwin, Jardine 3, Harrison 2, Gardiner 2, Mathers, Russell