Meath Rangers 2 Spartak 1<\/p>\n
A weak approach in the final third, particularly in the first half, let Spartak down and they slipped to an unexpected and unwelcome defeat in what was a lack lustre performance.<\/p>\n
Early domination was not converted to goals due to poor crosses and timid\u00a0finishing. Grier volleyed over from Cibirka\u2019s corner, Burke headed wide from a Grier long throw; Spartak\u2019s best move of the game saw passes from O\u2019Connell, Cibirka and Love set up Burke 12 yards out but he shot straight at the keeper. Cibirka\u2019s header from Burke\u2019s cross was too weak to trouble the keeper.<\/p>\n
On 24 minutes Burke came in along the bye line to appeals from Meath that the ball was out. The ref called \u201cplay on\u201d so he then crossed and Love converted to the net\u00a0\u2013 whereupon the ref promptly disallowed the goal and gave a goal kick!<\/p>\n
Meath\u2019s first attack brought a great headed clearance by Kenny and then on 38 minutes O\u2019Toole failed to deal with a cross and the loose ball was headed home for a lead totally against the run of play.<\/p>\n
This gave Meath something to hold on to and made Spartak\u2019s task more difficult.<\/p>\n
Burke chipped over from a \u00a0good position and then a superb ball by Cibirka released Kowal, but he shot on the run straight at the \u00a0keeper.<\/p>\n
Early second half Burke shot wide of the near post after being released by Cibirka and O\u2019Toole saved after Kenny was caught in possession. Disaster struck on 58 minutes when a long cross from Spartak\u2019s left flank was spectacularly volleyed past O\u2019Toole.<\/p>\n
Spartak\u2019s response was immediate and Flanagan\u2019s pass released Breen whose scuffed shot beat the home keeper to reduce arrears.<\/p>\n
While Spartak had plenty of possession the quality of crosses was poor generally and quite a number of players fluffed their lines in this aspect of the game. Passing was slow and cumbersome at times and many attacks petered out due\u00a0 to the use of a long ball. Failure to progress with overlapping play against a deep lying defence was costly and there was also a tendency to over carry the ball and get caught in possession.<\/p>\n
Spartak sought to equalise and a\u00a0 good run and cross from McEnroe saw Flanagan get under the ball to shoot over and a late header by McEnroe was straight at the keeper.<\/p>\n
Despite having the lion\u2019s share of possession Spartak slipped to a costly defeat.<\/p>\n
Form Report<\/p>\n
Peter O \u2018Toole 5 Fintan Grace 5 Rob Mahon 5 Steve Grier 6 Alex Kenny 7 Stuart Love 5 Will O Connell 6 Gintaras Cibirka 6 Glen Burke 5 Graham Breen 5 Tom Kowal 5.<\/p>\n
Subs Tom Flanagan 6 Graham McEnroe 6 Dave Browne 6\u00a0Kevin O\u2019Toole Jason Northey<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Meath Rangers 2 Spartak 1 A weak approach in the final third, particularly in the first half, let Spartak down and they slipped to an unexpected and unwelcome defeat in what was a lack lustre performance. Early domination was not converted to goals due to poor crosses and timid\u00a0finishing. Grier volleyed over from Cibirka\u2019s corner, […]<\/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-707","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\/707","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=707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":708,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions\/708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}