Saturday 4th February, 2012

We travelled up to Loughmoss for this match on Sat morning for a 9:30 KO. I have set our lads a target of winning the last 5 games we had in this league (something that I think is really achievable) this was the first of those 5 games and they done themselves proud with a strong performance with only 10 men for almost all of the match. The lads didn’t start well, with a few changes in the starting 11 – Missing C. ORawe and C. Ferguson meant that we had to reshuffle players around who found it pretty difficult in the 1st 10-15 mins of the game but they did put in a performance in the 2nd half which was really good. In the first 5 mins Carryduff had a corner and one of their big centre halves had won the header that seemed to be going into the right hand corner of the net then out of no-where our left back (lee McCann) dove and cleared the ball of the line with his hand – a save def to be proud of but the fact he was an outfield player gave Carryduff a penalty and got himself a straight red card lol. Luckily for us the Carryduff player missed and the game stayed at 0-0. It was carryduff that took advantage first with another corner that their striker met and put the ball past our keeper. We started arguing with each other and found it difficult to get the ball on the deck and play any football. We did show signs of it but didn’t bother the keeper until around 20 mins into the game with our first attack on goal. Adam Jones rounded the keeper and slotted home with his 12th of the season. It was game on but Carryduff still found it fairly easy to pass their way through our midfield and it worked for them again when they went 2-1 up and to be honest looked liked they could of scored more only for Manuel Wilson putting in another Man of the Match performance in Centre Back. Half time came and my message to them was simply to play as a team and put in a real shift as it is going to be hard with 10 men and the result will come our way if they played together as a team. For the first 10 mins of the 2nd half this is what they did and carryduff couldn’t handle it, they didn’t even get a touch of the ball and we attacked their defence with counter attacking at its finest. We scored with about 15 mins into the 2nd half with a cracking corner fired in from Fra Harbo and Gary Lennon who was just back from injury met with a fine header to make the game 2-2. Carryduff did play their part in the 2nd half and our Keeper Sean McIlhatton made some fine saves to keep them at bay. With the game at 2-2 both teams where going for the winner and it was the valley bhoys that got the winner with sub Ryan Loughran being at the right place and the right time with the ball coming to him after the keeper made a save only for it to fall right to Ryan’s feet for an easy tap in. Game was almost over and the 3 points where in the bag. Great team performance in the 2nd half which I am really proud of for the lads as they started very nervously. Next game is v Aquinas at Cheeryvale.