Orwell o Spartak 1<\/p>\n
A scrappy match was decided by a Graham Breen header from a Glen Burke free kick in the 84th minute. \u00a0Justice was served as the free was awarded outside the box while the foul on Burke was very clearly inside.<\/p>\n
Squad changes were forced due to absence of Tom Kowal (suspended) Steve Grier (hols) and Tom Flanagan who felt his hamstring in the warm up. Graham Breen pronounce himself fit to start. Dave Browne stepped in for Grier at the back and gave a solid performance.<\/p>\n
Extra back up was provided by Tom O\u2019Driscoll, Martin Costello with the ever reliable duo of Shane McInerney and Derek McGoldrick \u00a0present as additional cover.<\/p>\n
On a dry and bumpy surface Orwell defended by the simple expedient of an\u00a0offside trap which ensnared the Spartak strikers, Graham McEnroe and Breen on too many occasions. Breen was booked for protesting against one marginal decision. Both strikers struggled to link play in the first period.<\/p>\n
The means to beat the trap, swift interpassing with runs from deep and also wide play were both beyond Spartak in the first half when many players overcarried the ball or were careless in distribution. It was rare that midfielders were able to get beyond the strikers and both full backs contributed\u00a0little in the way of attacking play with Glen\u00a0guilty of overcarrying and Rob Mahon making a number of\u00a0 hurried clearances or playing the ball long.<\/p>\n
An early scare, and probably Orwell\u2019s best chance, came when Peter O\u2019Toole called for a ball and was beaten to it but ended happily for the vistors in a frantic clearance by Alex Kenny.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stuart Love took a heavy knock in a 50\/50 challenge wih the keeper and had to be replaced early in the second half.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Substitutes O\u2019Driscoll and Anto Doyle together with some positional switches gave Spartak a more offensive shape as they really began to chase the game in the second half and at last good chances began to be created with Breen\u2019s effort saved, Gintaras Cibirka clipping a post and Burke\u2019s effort saved, and Breen heading over.<\/p>\n
There was considerable relief all round as the build up of pressure finally told and the winner was procured with minutes remaining.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Kevin O\u2019Toole came on as a late sub to provide extra defensive cover as Spartak saw out the game.<\/p>\n
\u00a0A vital three points, but the performance, particularly first half, was unconvincing.<\/p>\n
Form Report<\/p>\n
Peter O\u2019Toole 6 Glen Burke 6 Rob Mahon 6 Dave Browne 7 Alex Kenny 7 Stuart Love 6 Neil McGowan 7 Gintaras Cibirka 6 Graham McEnroe 6 Graham Breen 6 Will O Connell 6\u00a0<\/p>\n
Subs : Tom O\u2019Driscoll 6 Anto Doyle 7 Kevin O\u2019Toole 6 Martin Costello Fintan Grace Shane McInerney Derek McGoldrick<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Orwell o Spartak 1 A scrappy match was decided by a Graham Breen header from a Glen Burke free kick in the 84th minute. \u00a0Justice was served as the free was awarded outside the box while the foul on Burke was very clearly inside. Squad changes were forced due to absence of Tom Kowal (suspended) […]<\/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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981","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=981"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1000,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions\/1000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spartakdynamofc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}