St Vincent's DFC 1 – 2 Shanganagh Cliffs FC

Maguire (35)

St Vincent's quest to record their first victory of the season continues after suffering their first loss of the season at the hands of visitors Shanganagh who survived a quite a scare when O'Callaghan fired a golden chance over the bar in the dying seconds of the game. It was a game in which the Blues's lack of focus played a part in their downfall.

In response to the disappointing performances in the weeks prior to the match, Geoff Foy vowed to make some changes and he did just that by giving Dunne, Keogh and Moloney their first starts of the season while juggling the positions of some players at the expense of others who found themselves relegated to the substitutes bench. The new look starting line up took some time to get settled and the match was tight with two teams battling for supremacy. An early chance presented itself when Justin Smyth broke free of his marker and bore down upon goal, but just as he was about to pull the trigger he had the ball snatched off his toe by the recovering defender. Shanganagh gave us a fair headache too and our new central defence partnership of Stuart Foy and Archer had to be alert whilst marshaling a defence complimented by Dunne and Keogh on either flanks.

As the match remained delicately in the balance, St Vincent's DFC had a period in which they almost came close to breaking the deadlock. After Maguire was felled just outside the box, Stuart Foy sent a sweet low free kick but the Shanganagh keeper was at full stretch to parry it out for a corner. Several minutes later, the Shanganagh defence breathed a sigh of relief after they had failed to clear a corner properly, narrowly escaping punishment as Moloney's sweetly executed volley from 12 yards out crashed against the crossbar.

There were chances at both ends and Shanganagh were just as threatening as we were. We had a scare ourselves when their left winger whipped in a deadly in-swinging cross which Lowry failed to meet and it looked on course to end up in the back of the net but much to our relief their striker decided to plant his head at the end of it only to see his effort go over the bar.

The game was already in throes of life, when the inevitable goal arrived after 35 minutes. After dropping deep, target man Moloney received a fine pass from the quick footed Watson to send Maguire clear with a through ball and the 18 year old prospect grabbed his second goal in as many matches by tucking the ball past the flailing keeper. Ten minutes later, an identical move materialised with Smyth being the benefactor but just as he broke free of the defence, the referee blew for half time much to the bewilderment of the St Vincent's sideline.

The second half saw a formational shuffle in a conservative approach but yet still retained an attacking element with O'Callaghan, Maguire, McMahon and Watson pressing forward at every chance.

However much to our frustration we were foiled by some good defending from Shanganagh and also by our lack of clinical finishing. After 15 minutes into the second half we were left cursing ourselves when we failed to close down their intruding midfielder who was allowed to fire a poor long range effort which looked to be going out for a corner but fortunately for them, screwed itself into the path of their winger who didn't need a second invitation to plant the ball past Lowry.

Five minutes later we were delivered a massive blow when Keogh was penalised for pulling his opponent's shirt inside the penalty box and the resulting penalty kick was coolly dispatched into the bottom corner despite Lowry's efforts to keep it out. This immediately seemed to revive the Blues back into life for the next ten minutes but we still couldn't get back on level terms before we disappointingly started to fade away in the last ten minutes.

As the full time whistle loomed, the Blues did not look like scoring again when suddenly Shanganagh's goalkeeper made a right mess of clearing a back pass and must have been the most relieved man in Dublin to see O'Callaghan send his effort sailing over the bar. While the usually reliable skipper would be the first to admit he missed a golden chance to rescue a point for his team, the harsh reality is that his fellow team-mates were guilty of making mistakes too in the same match and manager Geoff Foy stressed this by telling his troops that they must up their game, train harder and cut out the mistakes if they want to start climbing up the league after a disappointing start to their season.

First XI: Lowry, Dunne, Archer, S. Foy, Keogh, Watson, Maguire, K. Byrne, O'Callaghan (c), Smyth and Moloney.

Subs: McMahon for Moloney, S. Byrne for Smyth and Doyle for Maguire.
Unused subs: Connolly, Doona, Keating and Grattan.

MOM (as decided by management) : Robert Archer



Report written by Ciarán Moloney
 


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