Spartak 4 Balbriggan 2<\/p>\n
A number of defections impacted on team selection, with the self styled Dynamo child and others partying or rehearsing rather than playing, led to Mick Costello swapping his goalkeeping gloves for a midfield role, performing\u00a0well \u00a0and capping it with a goal.<\/p>\n
James Finn slotted into central defence\u00a0and along with Cathal Clancy was solid.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Spartak started this match very brightly and took the lead on 15 minutes when Steve Browne slotted home taking full advantage of a bad back pass. Earlier he had blazed a free kick way over the bar from a good position, as captain\u00a0and free taker Mick Greene stood by.<\/p>\n
Wave upon wave of Spartak attacks rained down on the visitors goal with the Spartak back four and midfield in creative form.\u00a0Adam Doran added number two with a smart turn and neat finish, before a Doran corner was bundled in by Mick Costello for number three. Browne\u2019s tendency to shoot too early cost him the opportunity to further add to his tally as leading scorer. A warning from Balbriggan was delivered when Spartak\u2019s lack of pressure on the ball \u00a0allowed a cross which drifted diagonally and was met on the right but pushed wide.<\/p>\n
Colm O\u2019Sullivan had a one on one chance in the first minute of the second half, but his shot was too close to the keeper. On 48 minutes Mick Costello won the ball close to\u00a0 the edge of the box and slipped it to Steve Browne, who laid off perfectly into the path of Doran and he drilled home a powerful cross shot into the bottom corner.<\/p>\n
Spartak\u00a0 then dr0pped concentration somewhat and Balbiggan came to the fore. On the right flank both Dan O Connell and Dave O Kelly began to show signs of wear and tear and Balbriggan overlapped to good effect. Cathal Clancy, having been carded for a tackle, then made a tremendous goal saving tackle on the edge of the six yard box, winning a goal kick to boot. On 76 minutes, a long throw in caused confusion in the home defence and Balbriggan tapped home.<\/p>\n
Spartak were effective on the break, but called back by some strange offside decisions, with Steve Browne getting booked for commenting, and also by missed chances by a tiring Browne and then by Rob Deering from close in while Adam Doran chose to shoot from the right when a pass to an unmarked team mate would have been more effective.<\/p>\n
Overall an impressive performance.<\/p>\n
Form Report<\/p>\n
Northey\u00a07 O\u2019Kelly 7 Greene 7 Finn 8 Clancy 8 McInerney 8 D O Connell 8 Doran 9 S Browne 7 O\u2019Sullivan 7 Mick Costello 8<\/p>\n
subs N Bolger 6 Deering\u00a0 6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Spartak 4 Balbriggan 2 A number of defections impacted on team selection, with the self styled Dynamo child and others partying or rehearsing rather than playing, led to Mick Costello swapping his goalkeeping gloves for a midfield role, performing\u00a0well \u00a0and capping it with a goal. James Finn slotted into central defence\u00a0and along with Cathal Clancy […]<\/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":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-news","category-saturday-lsl-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610","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=610"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":616,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions\/616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}