Match Report

Match : 2nd XI v Larne 2nd XI
Date : 2007-11-16
Venue : A
Score : 2-0
Scorers : Ronnie McDowell (2)

By Ronnie McDowell

Friday night marked the 2nds match against Larne 2nds. Before the game started it was looking pleasing in the fact that there were a few new faces turned up in Chris Blaine and Michael Wilson who i had not met before. Also we had a few of the older faces back that have not been able to play on saturdays. With being away all week myself working Chris Leslie had taken on the roll of organising the team for me, A job that he done remarkably well as 16 players all turned up and got a game. So well Done Chris your help was appreciated. Right now on to the match. The match started off very lively with both teams pushing forward and having half chances on goal, the experience of Graeme Reid in the center of defence helped the younger guys of Gopal and Ian Foster break down their attacks and set about our own. Scott Higginson aka Rambo was the man in the center of midfield and showed some good experience in pushing forward and making attacks. It was from this and a once again outstanding Alan Russell that the first real attack came with alan running down the right and rambo making the run into the box only for one of the larne players to make an excellent tackle. It wasnt long after that when Phil Brown got the ball down the left and used his pace to lose the larne defence and put a cross in, it was from there that Ronnie got in infront of the keeper and and made him come off his line there for letting Ronnie slide the ball past him into the net. 1.0 and a bit of pressure released. Straight from the goal larne were at east antrim with attack after attack coming at us but we held out and 10 minutes after the first goal Ronnie was in on the keeper again only for the keeper to push the ball wide towards the back line, but Ronnie did not give up and got the ball just on the line and put it in from a very tight angle. 2.0, at last a bit of breathing space, with George managing on the sidelines the changes were all left to him and an excellent job he did in getting everyone plenty of time on the pitch. Half time came and the guys came out of the blocks slightly slowly again but only this time we held on and the excellent defending and pushing forward of Jonny Orr nearly resulted in a few more goals. Larne also had their chances in the second half onle for our defence to shut them out everytime. I have to say that Jonny and Alan Russell were the 2 outstanding men of the night but not taking it away from the rest of the team it was great TEAM performance. A big thanks to Chris for the organising the team, George for his bit on the night and Leon for Umpiring. that now leaves us with 2 wins a draw and a loss but the season is starting to look brighter.

Jonny Orr