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Leicester Celtic vs Portmarnock Match Report
The Saturday team ended the year in style with a 2 nil win away to Leicester Celtic this Friday night. The game started with Porto in the ascendancy and control the ball for long periods n the opening 20 mins creating plenty of good opportunities. The first of which fell to Ross Waters who after a well worked move the ball fell to him on his left hand side and he narrowly sent the ball wide. A few moments later Waters came close again working the goal keeper again on his near post after another left footed effort. Porto continued to press and came close again when Darren Daly got in down the right hand side but failed to capitalise. A few moments later after another great move the ball broke loose to Robbie Kane on the edge of the box but again Porto failed to take the initiative.
As the half went on the Ports really started to turn the screw and after some more missed opportunities eventually took the lead deservedly on the half hour mark. After some fantastic work down the right hand side between Darren Daly and Daragh Brennan, Daly slipped a perfectly timed ball into Ross Waters who duly slide the ball past the Leicester keeper.
Porto kept the pressure on after breaking the deadlock and got their more than deserved second when Cian McGregor smashed a volley home off his left foot into the roof of the net. The sides went in at half time with Portmarnock 2 up.
The second half started in much the same vein as Porto upped the tempo to kill the game off. Simon Lenihan got himself into great goalscoring positions on 3 different occasions in the early stages of the half but failed to take advantage. Porto continued to dominate the play and the ball and came close again after some great wok down the right hand side from Lenihan and Cian McGregor the ball was centred to Waters who was over stretching and just could not keep the ball down from close range. Danny Byrne then went close with a few minutes too go – the youngster was extremely impressive when introduced with 15 minutes to go showing great energy and composure on the ball.
All in all it was a very productive evening for the young side motm went to Daragh Brennan who was relentless all night with his deep runs from right back – in truth there was at least 5 players that would have been deserving of the motm accolade with stand out performances again from Conor Walsh and Ross Waters along with Cian MCGregor. The win was dedicated after by the players to Paul Scully who suffered a double leg break last weekend in the win over Kilnamnagh in Paddys Hill. Paul’s dedication and desire on the pitch will be sorely missed for the rest of the season.
That makes it 5 wins in a row and 6 unbeaten, considering less than 3 months ago it looked like there may not be a team to be in the current run of form we are in is a magnificent feat and all the credit for this has to go to all the players. They have stuck together, worked hard and performed. We now go into an extremely important period over the next few weeks although there will be no league games friendly and training preparations for the festive period are underway to make sure the run continues.
Startin 11: Dylan Fitzpatrick, Daragh Brennan, Alex McWilliams, Noel McGinnity, Lee Dunne, Conor Walsh, Robbie Kane, Simon ‘Dolphin Head’ Lenihan, Cian McGregor, Ross Waters, Darren Daly
Subs: Adam Moran, Danny Byrne, Ethan Maiti, Shane O’Reilly
