Tobermore Utd 0-2 Draperstown Youth

(Scorers: Gavin Bradley, Gavin O'Kane)

Starting line-up (4-4-2): John Paul McConnell, Cathal McKenna, Davin McSorley, Darren McKillion, Patrick McCullagh, Phillip McGlade, Cathal Donnelly, Gavin O'Kane, Chris O'Kane, Sean Kennedy, Gavin Bradley.

Subs: Kevin McCullagh, Gavin Kelly, Seamus Dobbs, Connor McKenna

The game started late due to there being a problem in the Draperstown camp with very few players showing up. It also seen the return of Sean Kennedy, who had been missing for some weeks.

After this small setback, the match got underway with Draperstown kicking off, but lost the ball straight away. Tobermore's centre forward got the ball at least 35 yards out and seeing no keeper in nets let rip. McConnell, who had been making a divet for his kick-outs, had to turn quickly, dive across the nets and luckily enough he managed he scoop it over the ball. An ominous start to say the least.

And soon, Davin McSorley had to save us again with a headed clearance off the line.

After this, for the next 5 minutes or so, Tobermore were on top, yet never really looked like scoring. Soon, D'Town gained control of the game, with Tobermore having to switch to long balls over the defence, which were very unsucessful. Up the field, we were very dangerous, winning frees in dangerous positions. On about the 3rd one, Gavin Bradley stepped up to take the free from about 25 yards out. His shot curled over the wall and straight into the top-left hand corner. 1-0! And Tobermore looked shaken.

Draperstown continued to dominate and hold more possession but couldn't manage to turn this into more goals. Tobermore somehow managed to hold out until half-time.

The management was unsurprisingly happy with the 1st half performance and so changed nothing. However, from the start of the 2nd half it was obvious that subs were needed as for the 1st time the Tobermore midfield seemed to be on top and all the time they seemed to have extra men available. Soon after this, Kevin McCullagh replaced Patrick McCullagh for the 2nd time in 7 days.

Soon after this, Gavin O'Kane hit a good shot from the end of the box with his bad foot into the corner of the net. It was 2-0. and the D'Town boys could hardly believe it. By now Tobermore had lost confidence

Tobermore then broke out of defence and played a neat ball over the top which Tobermores winger feed onto. Just when it looked like he was going to score, Kevin McCullagh came out of nowhere with a slide tackle reminiscent of Bobby Moores on Pele many years ago.

More subs were made, with Cathal Donnelly (who had been playing excellantly), Sean Kennedy and Chris O'Kane coming off for Connor McKenna, Gavin Kelly and Seamus Dobbs. Immediately, Gavin Kelly made an impression with many great runs and some crunching tackles in midfield. One run saw him feed a ball to Darren McKillion, whos shot from the edge of the box just went over the bar.

It was then that Davin McSorley and McKillion looked under pressure for the 1st time in the match, with the Tobermore forwards causing problems. However, the defence held out stoutly until the last minute, defending numerous corners extremely well. Then in the last minute, with things getting very dark. there was a goal line scrap with the Tobermore boys claiming a goal and the Draperstown ones claiming a goaline clearance. The ref blew for full-time, not giving the goal.

Overall, it was a great team performance. We even had Gary Conway, Andy Burns, Sean O'Neill and Sean McGrogan missing. Things are looking up and who knows, perhaps we will give the league a rattle.