1st XI v Sinjuns – League  (Away) 24/04/2010

 

A trip down south required an 11am arrival in Kingston – for most of the team anyway. Tom Capliss decided to take on the A3 and came off second best. This meant our starting line up saw Liam slot in at left back. ‘Uncle’ Peter O G started in midfield to keep an eye on his nephews and Barry came in up front alongside Brendan. On a huge, dry, bumpy pitch we were quick out of the blocks and put Sinjuns under immediate pressure playing our football high up the pitch. Conor whipped in a corner that saw Dan put his ‘head where it hurts’ ending up with him leaving the pitch with his face having taken a battering. Five minutes later he was back on, patched up with plasters and cotton wool.

 

A good move saw Peter play the ball through to Conor who slipped Brendan in. His first time shot was parried by the keeper. With the keeper stranded, Brendan slammed the rebound towards goal only to see the ball tipped round the post by a Sinjuns player. The ref pointed straight to the spot, decided to give a yellow rather than a red card, and Steve Gallagher sent the keeper the wrong way to give us the lead.  With Sinjuns safe in mid table, another goal at this stage may have opened the floodgates but in the spirit of AFA football, we duly gifted them an equaliser on the stroke on half time. We must surely be favourites for the ‘fair play; award with the amount of goals we have kindly donated to our opponents in almost every game this season.

 

Just before half time, Tom finally arrived having gone both ways along the A3 (ask Tom!). As the second half was underway, Tom updated me on his prowess in his younger days as ‘handy enough’ forward player. In the end, I caved in and Tom came on for Peter as a straight swap in midfield instead of in his usual full back position. Sinjuns put up much more fight in the second half and started to cause us problems with their pace, their right winger especially getting behind us quite a bit. Steve Franklin calmed us down with a superb goal when he received a return ball (from either Barry or Jim) and hit a left foot shot over the head of the keeper from 30 yards.

 

Sinjuns decided to go all out on the attack and looked more and more dangerous. Martin kept us in the game with some good saves and as the game went on we found it hard to get back on top. Tom and Liam swapped places and one piece of skill from Liam is worthy of a mention. A clearance from Martin saw the ball drop over Liam’s shoulder. He took the ball first time in his stride, knocked it down the right wing and then outpaced the defender to cross for Brendan, who saw his half volley well saved by the keeper. (I’d like to say just like his Dad but as he outpaced someone, it was more like one of his Uncle’s (obviously not John either!))

 

With about 5 minutes to go, we sealed the victory when Tom Cappliss produced a quality cross from the left that saw Brendan crash home a header off the under side of the bar. Not our best performance against a spirited Sinjuns side but we have played better and lost this season so we’ll take the points.

 

A quick exit to the bar where Bailey and Gallagher danced about when United beat Spurs 3-1 – both are dropped next week!

 

MOM: Martin Steele

 

 

Dave O’ G