Swords Celtic 2, Spartak 0.<\/p>\n
Following their recent good run, Spartak viewed this fixture as a springboard towards the top of the table. However numerous absentees from the regular squad caused disruption and Spartak could only field 11 with the aid of Steve Mongey\u2019s seasonal debut and with Anto Doyle, Fintan Grace and Neil McGowan volunteering to double up. So Spartak\u00a0were forced to reshape and while the effort was spirited, guile and finishing power were lacking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 2-0 scoreline somewhat flattered the home side, as the second goal came in injury time as Spartak searched in vain for an equaliser.<\/p>\n
The home side threatened\u00a0from a corner early on which Jason Northey got a\u00a0touch and Fintan Grace tidied up at the back post.<\/p>\n
Spartak\u2019s set pieces were foiled by pushing by attackers which repeatedly let the home side off the hook.<\/p>\n
On 32 minutes Swords put a flowing move together down the Spartak left flank and a fine shot put them one up. Jason Northey then had a couple of lucky escapes when he puched and\u00a0missed,\u00a0and also when he raced outside his box but instead of finding touch he cleared straight to an opposition player who could not convert with the goal open.<\/p>\n
Spartak began the second half in determined fashion. Martin Costello went close with headers from Neil McGowan\u2019s frees. One of the best opportunities came to Niall Hanratty who blazed over from seven yards. At the other end Grace and Martin Costello put in saving tackles and then when Northey mispunched the home side shot over. Mark Bolger, moved into atack, was wide with ahalf chance from a Hanratty cross. The second fine opportunity arose when Doyle and\u00a0 Hanratty combined to send Bolger down the right. He pulled back his cross to McGowan who shot wide. Swords were happy to scramble clear on occasion and Mick Greene, normally reliable, put a couple of corners wide to add to the frustration and Neil McGowan also put one wide. McGowan\u2019s header from Hanratty\u2019s cross was well saved.<\/p>\n
\u00a0In injury time Swords broke and while Northey got a hand to the chipped effort, he could not prevent it crossing the line.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Form Report<\/p>\n
Jason Northey 5 Anto Doyle 6 Mark Bolger 5 Martin Costello 6 Fintan Grace 6 Neil McGowan 6 Niall Hanratty 6 Chris Hogan 5 Ross Kelly 5 Steve Mongey 5 Mick Costello 5. Sub Mick Greene 5 Thomas Gaynor no show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Swords Celtic 2, Spartak 0. Following their recent good run, Spartak viewed this fixture as a springboard towards the top of the table. However numerous absentees from the regular squad caused disruption and Spartak could only field 11 with the aid of Steve Mongey\u2019s seasonal debut and with Anto Doyle, Fintan Grace and Neil McGowan […]<\/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-871","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\/871","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=871"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":884,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions\/884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}