Wonderful morning for football though.
After the heights of last seasons’ three game series and wins, it was crashing back down to Earth on a warm day in Rickleton.
The squad, this time, was quite good. Up top we had Aiden Turnes, while the midfield five were Bunta, Gourlay (deciding to make an appearance), Michael Parkin (making his debut), Neil Middlemiss and Wayne Ramsay.
Centre halves we had Michael Pearson making his first come back for the 11-a-side in nearly 10 years (same with Ramsay). McConville joined him as centre half. Other debutantes were Ciaran Hartley, David McSherry and Liam Paul. In goal was Paul Hogg.
So despite having a pretty decent squad out there, we struggled early on. Not surprising as we’re not a regular team – we always need to keep tight for the first 15 or 20 in these occasions. Yet, we went 3-0 down pretty quickly and didn’t really create a huge amount of chances either. 4-5-1 is good because we tend to have good ball players, but having one up top is isolating and, despite the player holding the play up reasonably well, we just didn’t create anything dangerous.
It was in the late in the first half when he got a penalty – dispatched by Gourlay. Then Ramsay launched a volley over. Murton missed a close header. This set us up for the second half where we all played well, with Parkin driving the midfield along with Murton. Unfortunately, we ran out of steam and conceded late on as the game drew to a close.
