After a lot of texts and pitch inspections early on Saturday morning, the news came through that the pitch was playable and we were going to be going ahead as planned against Dublin North. This was a massive game for the lads after a fantastic win over Weston the week before (6-0) to ensure the momentum was maintained into the Christmas break.
The game started slowly largely down to the long ball “Irish Football” style of play Dublin North tried to play. We found it difficult to break down their defense as they relied on scraps to try score on the counter attack. The first half had very few chances from play but we did have a lot of corners that we could not capitalize on. Al came closest at the back post but he was unable to his stick on a reverse stick cross.
The 2nd half was much of the same and the game began to get scrappier and scrappier. North Dublin had created the type of game they would usually win 1-0 on a counter attack. However, up stepped our local Greenpeace activist Mr. Max Harris who netted an excellent reverse stick shot after some wonderful anti-skill to beat the keeper and put us up 1-0. It was a well deserved lead but we were made work very very hard for it. With about 10 minutes to go, we were made work a little less for our 2nd goal. The opposition tried to counter quickly from a hit out but found a Clontarf stick instead. The ball was passed to our local degenerate, Kevin Murray who miscontrolled it past the keeper where it fell to Bobbo with an open goal to dribble into.
The game finished at 2-0 and it was a well earned and well deserved 3 points for our Men’s 1st team. Not only is that 2 wins in a row for the lads, it is also 2 clean sheets in a row for David Lawless. Next up for the lads is Corinthians away which is a huge game to try keep crawling our way back up the table and into the playoff spots for the end of the season.
Match: Clontarf Men’s 1s vs DubliN North, 25/11/2017
Result: 2-0
Goals: Max, Bobbo
Written by: Robert Forrest