St Kevin’s 2 SDFC 4
Spartak over 35’s made the journey to South Wicklow on Saturday and came away with the 3 points after a tough encounter on a difficult pitch.
The Spartak side were slow to settle and produced a very flat performance for the first 30 minutes. The home side were sharper to the ball and created two early chances when cross field balls allowed their left winger in behind the Spartak defensive line but fortunately he failed to capitalise on both occasions.
The home side opened the scoring after 20 minutes when their striker was gifted a free header from a corner to easily place the ball past Jimmy Browne. With the visiting midfield struggling to assert any authority on the game, there was little threat coming from Spartak and the score remained 1-0 to St Kevin’s at the break.
On the resumption, there was much more urgency and competitiveness in Spartak’s play with the defensive and midfield lines gradually getting on top. A deserved equaliser arrived courtesy of Paddy Hughes from a free kick that was awarded by the local ref for the keeper handling the ball outside his area. Midway through the second half a neat passing move involving several Spartak players culminated with Ken Byrne stretching forward to tap home an excellent cross from Brendan Mooney to make the score 2-1.
With 20 minutes to go St Kevin’s were awarded a penalty following a foul by Brendan Mooney. To the relief of the visitors the kick was sent wide and the game completely changed. Literally a few minutes later a long punt by Jimmy Browne was misjudged by the home defence and Paddy Hughes raced clear to finish his second and Spartak’s third goal. Rory Campbell then finished well to make it 4-1.
There was still time for Spartak to have a few lapses in concentration resulting in one goal scored and two goal scoring opportunities missed for the opposition.
Overall, it was far from a vintage performance by the visiting Spartak team but a competitive effort particularly in the second half was just about enough to bring home the three points.
The Spartak squad was: Jimmy Browne, Dave Mohan, Greg Callan, Brian Stafford, Barry Crowe, Ken Byrne, Matt Grimes, Frank McNamee, Shay McClafferty, Mark Byrne, Paddy Hughes, Rory Campbell, Brendan Mooney, Leon David, Tom Maher.
