OLV35S 2(E.Fitzpatrick, S,O'Reilly)Portrane Afc a&b 3

OLV squad;
                                                                    Garreth Mahon,

                             James Coates (C),Martin Dunican,Phil Lowndes Terry Byrne,

                                    Rory Connolly, Garreth Boyle, Stuart Parker, Anto Maher,

                                                                          Pat Heary,

                                                                     Stewart O'Reilly,

Emmet Fitzpatrick, Martin Hanrahan,Keith Durkin, Ian Clifford, Jonny Dutton.

Manager John Lowndes.

       A great game of football but a disappointing result for the home team because we really were the better side and should have scored a couple more goals.
       Right from the kickoff we brought the game to Portrane and and even though we lost Anto Maher to an injury after a couple of minutes were unlucky not to grab an early goal from the resulting free-kick as Stewy OReilly hit a nice shot on the turn which was saved well by the keeper, we had numerous other efforts to open the scoring and the brilliant work of the defense (Phil Lowndes in particular) limited the opposition to only one serious shot which was well saved by keeper Mahon, we did take the lead late in the half though when some great play on the right wing between Rory Connolly and Pat Heary saw a cracking cross from Martin Hanrahan to Emmet Fitzpatrick who expertly scored with a left footed volley that any keeper would have struggled to save.
    Portrane came at us in the opening stages of the second half and they scored an equalizer after a few minutes when a obvious off-side attacker was allowed to run on to a through ball and place the ball past Mahon, we didnt give up though and Stewy (Thierry Henry)OReilly ran on to a cracking ball from Garreth Boyle ,shrugged off the attentions of 2 defenders and pass the ball beyond the advancing keeper and into the bottom corner ,bad luck is never far away from us though as we lost the ever reliable Martin Dunican to an injury and Phil Lowndes soon after but even with a re-shuffle of positions we still had the lions share of possession and should have scored a third, we didnt take our chances and were left looking on with dismay as Portrane scored an absolute worldy of a goal to equalize again which was followed up soon after with a winner as we twice failed to clear the ball and our indecision allowed Portrane to score, we were relentless in attack as the game ticked away to full time but just couldnt get a vital goal.

Very disappointing result but we can take great pride and positives for the way we played against a Portrane side that was littered with members of their 1st team.