::: Gorey Celtic FC

Saturday 28th January 2012
Fastnet Rovers 2 - 3 Gorey Celtic

We made the long journey down to Rathangan Village to take on 2nd place Fastnet Rovers on a cold but nice Saturday morning. It was always going to be a tricky tie and it proved to be one .

We lined out in a 4-5-1 formation to play a counter attack game and it worked straight away because we shot out of the traps, they had tip off and we won back possession moved the ball around and had the first shot on goal and that was the first of many Aaron, Jordan, Dion, JJ, Ben and Cian all having good chances but we failed to find the back of the net.
Fastnet cleared long we dealt with it easily played the ball back into midfield and they won back the ball and ran at us catching our lads on the back foot, they got numbers forward quickly and played the ball wide their player crossed the ball back in and they found the net only for the referee to blow for offside "let off no1".

It was a good old end to end half we had a couple more chances and Fastnet a great chance cleared of the line by John Joe

H.T. 0-0

At the break we just said to the lads to keep up the good work and to show a little bit more composure in front of goal .

So we kick off the second half and some how after only minutes we find ourselves a goal down, how I don't know, simple lack of communication. And then to make matters worse we lose Ben Clarke out of the engine room to injury. Aaron Doyle on now for Ben and the lads lift their game, we push Aaron Heffernan upfront and adjust things in to our normal 4-4-2 .

Then we stick Ryan on for a tiring Jordan who did a great job upfront on his own. These little changes did the trick for the lads we get the ball out wide to Dion who puts in a perfect cross to Aaron Heffernan who heads us level.
We're back in the game now and the confidence is high now knocking the ball around some good movement, Aaron Doyle finds room and shoots right into the bottom corner to put us 2-1 up. We are into the last 15 minutes and Dion decides to have a pop at 20 yards straight at the keeper who catches it and then drops the ball into his net to give us a 2 goal lead

We emptied the bench now with 5 minutes to go and tell the lads to keep things simple and hold onto the ball. Fastnet had other ideas and never dropped their heads and pulled one back with minutes to go due to a misunderstanding from us and great running from their little number 11.

Now we held on to the ball and ran the clock down to take home all 3 points ..
Man of the Match was JJ Larkin

Team: Corey Chambers, Cian Byrne, John Joe McCarthy, Sean Lavery, Alex Behan, Ben Clarke, JJ Larkin, Aaron Heffernan, Dion Leeson, Flavian Haiduc, Jordan Doyle.

Subs: Aaron Doyle, Ryan Mooney, Cormac Byrne, Dillon Byrne.