Glentoran
U12
3
- 2 Collinvalley
Saturday
13th October
It’s not often I ask
the grounds men to provide floodlights for a morning match but having to
get up when it was still pitch black was making me wonder. Surprisingly
for such an early kick off no one was late; even Darryl was sitting in the
changing room with 2 minutes to spare!
Going into the game
it’s fair to say we had great belief in the dressing room. For only the
second time this season I think we had a full squad and, with the way we
played against Carryduff the week before, the management made several
changes. Matthew Dunn came in at centre midfield after a brilliant second
half performance along with Jamie Tharma and Richard Annett.
Justin and Thomas were also slotted back into defence.
The boys had been training well and were showing some excellent
football.
The game started well,
with our boys having chance after chance and we were very unlucky to
score. Richard and Jamie both had some excellent shots coming from some
lovely crosses and passes proved by Glen Cleland and Andrew Mellon.
Matthew Dunn’s berkampesk link up play was exciting to watch and with
Sam Knox’s crossing we were sure that it was only a matter of time
before one would go in.
And that’s true
except for one small problem; it was in our own net!
Against the run of play we had went one down, which seems to be a
common problem this year. The
coaches knew it was the same old story, we just aren’t hard enough!
By half time, however,
it was all square with Thomas Templeton getting his name on the score
sheet and almost becoming £2545.42 richer (after one of the coaches
saying that if Thomas Templeton scored from 40 yards he’d give him his
month’s wages). The second half kicked off and saw us soon go 2-1 up
with Andrew Mellon scoring from the spot after a handball in the box. Soon
after we were denied another penalty after another blatant handball
however the ref missed that one which clearly makes us ask one question,
“Why didn’t he go to specsavers?” Ben Anderson came on for Andy and
soon made an impact, scoring a cracking shot from distance and also making
some strong challenges (although 3 hours late), something some other
players fail to do.
Other changes saw
Mathew “the Tiger” Irwin replace M. Dunn, David
Fee for J Tharma and Ross
“the Tank” Wilson for R Tate.
Late again we let in
another goal which was to give the boys a late scare before the final
whistle blew. A good result considering how well we know we can play. The
boys played some excellent football and when in possession are a joy to
watch but we do need to start killing teams off and have to be harder and
quicker to win the ball back to stop conceding soft goals.
Man of Match
Glen Cleland/ Craig Briers
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