26 Apr 2008 - Unlucky U13's Lose Out To Late Sucker Punch

Mid Ulster Youth League

U13 First Division

Portadown FC Youth 0 - 1 Barcroft

Portadown FC Youth played the league runners up in this end of season encounter with five players missing from their normal squad after recent departures and non arrivals. This meant a call up for many squad players. As this was an end of season game and with 3rd place in the league guaranteed the starting line up contained all the players on the fringe of the squad.

Barcroft started with the slope of the pitch in their favour and they started the brighter. With the midfield all changed around it took the team time to find their feet and Barcroft were controlling the centre of the park and they almost took the lead after nearly ten minutes when they attacked but their attackers lob over Robert Robinson in goal rebounded back of the crossbar and Robert Murray cleared the ball. Indeed Robert Murray was invaluable in this game as only minutes later he scrambled to literally clear the ball of the Ports goalline after Barcroft rounded Robinson and shot at an open goal. Kyle Russell, one of the players making his first start for a while, was also was impressive with some well timed tackles. Portadown gradually came into the game after the midfield of Ashley Hall and Nathan McCann, making his first start, started to get involved with the play and this saw Luke Somerville have a number of half chances. Murray was still needed to do a job though as Barcroft continued to push and Murray made a few last ditch tackles to stop them taking the lead. Jordan Nellins was switched to the left wing with Dylan Lawson on the right and both saw attempts go agonisingly across the front of goal and just miss the far post. As the half wore on Portadown started to get some control on the game but overall Barcroft had the better first half. 

The second half saw the slope in Portadown's favour and they controlled the play from the off. McCann and Hall had by now won the midfield and Nellins and Lawson were making lovely runs up both wings and Barcroft were spending a lot of their efforts keeping the Ports at bay. On the occassions that they were able to push up Taylor Scott, Robert Murray, Kyle Russell and Graham Bunting where there to clear the danger. The weakest part to the Portadown play seemed to be that Bunting was being left exposed as the team pushed forward in the second half and at times had three players to contend with. Making his first appearance was Christopher Davies after he replaced Russell and he too showed a lack of playing first team football was no barrier with a very impressive debut. Around the middle of the half the Ports saw a number of chances come & go with no reward, first up Somerville had a shot but the Barcroft keeper got down low to his left to save the shot then Hall tried a high looping shot in an effort to lob the keeper but again the keeper was up to the task. Hall then tried a free kick from from about thirty yards out and just as it looked like it had beat the keeper he again somehow stopped the chance. Further chances went narrowly wide in the last five minutes, in fact Portadown could have easily scored five or six in thee last 20 minutes but then as they were pushing up trying to win they were hit by a complete sucker punch with only 1 minute left. After a Ports attack broke down Barcroft made a long clearance with the Ports keeper Robinson in a race with the Barcroft striker for the ball, the striker won the race and with Robinson about 25 yards out from his goal he simply lobbed him for the ball to roll in for Barcroft to steal the match.

A cruel blow to the boys as they had been dominant in the second half and fully deserved at least one point from the game if not all three but these things happen in football. One player stood out today for man of the match and that was Robert Murray.

With the season now at a close the management of the team would like to thank the boys for their effort and hard work during a hard and at times a very trying season. After such a bad start to the season they have really performed wonders to finish the season in third place. But there will be no rest for the wicked as preparations for next season will start at training on Monday evening.

Report by Keith Hall