Irishtown F.c. 3- V -1 OLV 35s (S.Houlahan)

OLV squad ; Dave Kelly ,Anto Kelly ,Garreth Donovan ,Martin Duncan ,Mick Collins ,Ian Clifford ,Philip Lowndes ,Pat Heary ,Stuart Houlahan ,Derek Dunne ,Noel Stapleton ,Paddy McEvoy ,Matt Connelly ,Mark Matthews.






 Manager ; John Lowndes



Formation 4-5-1






 Two first half own goals and a late third ensured Olv suffered a 3rd successive defeat this week away to Irishtown,but its not doom and gloom for the Ballyfermot side as for long periods of this game they controlled all the play and possession. The game started well for OLV and from the outset they seemed to handle Irishtowns physical approach to the game easily as the centre midfield trio of Heary, Lowndes and Houlahan got stuck in and had the home side on the backfoot in the opening 20 mins, wingers Clifford and Dunne had difficult tasks as they were busy up and down the flanks but done well against the tough Irishtown full-backs getting some good crosses in for hard working lone striker Noel Stapleton to get on the end of, this gameplan was working well as full-backs Kelly and Collins handled the opposing wingers with relative ease while centre-backs Dunican and Donovan were once again strong in the air and hard as ever in tackles,keeper Kelly was alert as usual and had little to do early on but pulled off some quality saves when called upon ,particularly getting down to his right to keep out a well struck shot from outside the box ,but as a lot of things went well for Olv ,some mistakes could have been costly and one certainly was as the Olv rearguard failed to clear an Irishtown attack and the home sides forward had a shot on goal that was deflected into the goal from one of the Olv players midriff,this goal rattled Olv somewhat and Irishtown sensed this and had a long period of play themselves towards the end of the half and with only a couple minutes left they scored again when a cleared ball that on any other day would have went behind for a corner somehow came down the other side of the crossbar and into the Olv goal.

Half-time 2-0



Olv began the second half with only one change to the side when Mark Matthews came in to the game on the left side in an effort to get Olv back into the game and it almost worked straight  away as he made a good run down the flank cut inside and almosted scored with a fine curling effort that went just outside the post,this early attack lifted the whole team and Olv went on the offensive with everybody now settled back into the game and playing some good football and creating quite a few chances,manager Lowndes made a couple more changes bringing Connelly and then McEvoy into the match ,the fresh legs kept the Ballyfermot side on the attack and they soon scored when Houlahan went on a great run and finished well from the edge of the box, surely now Olv would score an equaliser as they poured forward with every opportunity and pinned Irishtown into their own half, the home side had a couple of chances themselves but good defending and goalkeeping kept them at bay and it looked as if Olv might get something from this game but once again bad luck struck as Irishtown launched a long ball into Olvs half and when the full-back looked to have cleared the ball it came back off an Irishtown strikers chest,fell right into his path and he finished well to put his side two goals up again,with only a couple of minutes remaining Olv surely couldnt score two goals but they made every effort and put in a great effort for the remainder of the game but the ref soon blew the final whistle.

Full-time  3-1

Well done to all the lads for this good performance and surely the results will come our way as long as we continue to play this way and keep our great team spirit going.