Sat April 9th – Newry U15s 5-1 Banbridge Rangers U15s

What a difference a week makes. After a disappointing 4-0 defeat to league leaders Armagh City last week the lads bounced back in style with a super team performance to earn a a stunning 5-1 win against Banbridge Rangers on Saturday!

Newry Centre-back Aidan Ovesen opened the scoring with a fine header from a corner. Newry missed a few more chances during the first half and in all honesty could have conceded but for some fine defending by the whole back line.

It was really during the second half that Newry started to play the silky free flowing football that this team are capable of. Tiarnan Murphy placed a ball away from the keeper to make it 2-0 early shortly after the restart. But to their credit, Banbridge never gave up and scored from a corner to pull back the score back to 2-1. A poor clearance soon after from a Banbridge defence saw Tiernan O’Reilly hit a blistering shot into the net to make it 3-1. From here Newry stepped up a gear and O’Reilly slotted home his second after some great play by Toner to make it 4-1.

The highlight of the second half was a charging run from full back Matthew McGinn! He ran the length of pitch with the ball and was unlucky not to score after a ferocious shot came back off the crossbar. But Tiarnan Murphy followed in to smash the rebound into the net and make it 5-1. It was an excellent all round team performance in the second half and some great individual performances from Aaron Gallagher and Niall Grant in particular.

Goal scorers get mentioned regularly but without the support of the whole squad goals won’t come. One of our strengths is team belief that we can win matches but as always there’s still room for improvement before next weeks cup final against Armagh City!

Again a big thanks to all of the parents for their great support and I would encourage as many parents and Newry supporters to get behind the team next Saturday morning against Armagh City in Mid Ulster Plate Final in Lurgan!