1.9.15
\nDundrum 0, Spartak 1<\/p>\n
In a tight game of few chances on a murky midweek evening, the better opportunities fell to the Sky Blues, who could have increased the margin of victory. In the Spartak goal, Jason Northey was well protected and had a routine evening, with safe handling and a couple of saves, particularly in the hectic closing stages as the home team pressed for an equaliser against a reduced Spartak complement.<\/p>\n
Spartak went into this match without the ever industrious midfield services of Stuart Love, who had the misfortune to incur a cruciate ligament knee injury in the final friendly. A full recovery by Stu will be a big boost to the club.<\/p>\n
The breakthrough goal came on 27 minutes when Steve Grier received a throw in from Dave Browne on the right, swivelled and then drove the ball into the corner left footed from 18 yards.<\/p>\n
Spartak broke continually; Martin Costello overlapped and put in a great cross which just eluded the Spartak attackers. Keith Kelly made a fine run, was fouled, and from Steve Walsh\u2019s free kick , Steve Grier\u2019s stooping header was fractionally wide. Kelly and Grier had long range efforts off target, while Steve Walsh tried to lob the keeper, but his effort was comfortably saved.<\/p>\n
At the other end some defensive slips caused some concern, but Dundrum\u2019s shooting was always within Northey\u2019s grasp.<\/p>\n
Early in the second half a great move by Grier, Walsh and Ger Byrne saw Dave Kernan with a close range angled opportunity; his shot was marginally too high and struck the bar. Again Grier and Byrne combined to give Alan Farrington a chance to turn and shoot from close in, but he opted for an attempted lay off and the opportunity evaporated.<\/p>\n
Paul Kinsella broke from defence and forced a corner from which Martin Costello shot wide.<\/p>\n
Spartak had played two days previously on the Sunday while their opponents had not, therefore it seemed like a good idea (at the time) to utilise the substitutes. Having done so, with 15 minutes remaining, Karl McCullough had to go off with a hamstring injury having been jostled at full pace, while Keith Kelly also went off for a while, reducing the Sky Blues temporarily to 9 men. <\/p>\n
It was then that Spartak showed their mettle, defending for their lives; indeed a break out following a corner saw Paul Kinsella lead an overload of Sky Blue attackers; however his pass to Jeff Gamble was not ideal and the home keeper, 40 yards from goal and with no defenders available, was able to block. A more precise pass and a second goal would have been a certainty.<\/p>\n
Paul then foolishly reacted verbally to earlier physical intimidation and was dismissed with 5 seconds of the game remaining, the ball out of play and with a goal kick awarded to Spartak. <\/p>\n
Form Report
\nJason Northey 7 Dave Browne 7 Martin Costello 7 Paul Kinsella 7 Karl McCullough 6 Alan Farrington 6 Keith Kelly 6 Dave Kernan 7 Steve Grier 8 Ger Byrne 7 Steve Walsh 7
\nSubs: Neil McGowan 6 Jeff Gamble 7 Thom O\u2019Driscoll 6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1.9.15 Dundrum 0, Spartak 1 In a tight game of few chances on a murky midweek evening, the better opportunities fell to the Sky Blues, who could have increased the margin of victory. In the Spartak goal, Jason Northey was well protected and had a routine evening, with safe handling and a couple of saves, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-news","category-sunday-lsl-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4449"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4451,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449\/revisions\/4451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}