Antrim 4ths 3 v 3 Bangor 6ths

BATTLING DRAW FOR BANGOR

Bangor fifths battled out a draw away to Antrim fourths on Saturday.

After making excellent time to Ballymena Show grounds the fifths were told they were playing on gravel, which the team doesn’t relish playing on. With 5 regulars missing from the line up Captain Mitchell was forced to make changes.

As the young team struggled to come to terms with the surface short corners dictated the scoring in the first half, as did a few poor umpiring decisions.

Antrim took the lead from a short after their attacker backed into and through two defenders before scoring, the umpire who gave it admitted his inexperience, whilst the other umpire was busying himself sorting out substitutions and missed the incident.

Antrim’s second was from another short, first shot coming head height eventually the ball was put in from an Antrim attacker.

2-0 at half time wasn’t a pleasing position to be in, but words of experience from Gerry Hamill and tactical changes from Mitchell saw the fifths go out in a positive mind set for the second half.

Mitchell came on to replace injured Crawford in the midfield, and straight away Bangor were moving forward with purpose, using short sharp attacks. A sweeping move for Bangor’s first started with Matty Neill McCready who moved the ball to Mitchell on the left, who found Hamill on the right who fed Allan Stevenson who controlled and blasted passed the keeper, for his first ever goal. Inspired, it was two after, debutant Dale Kirkpatrick, whose hitting was superb all game, crossed from the left and found Hamill who finished at the back post for the equaliser, then another move involving Robin McCready, Craig McDowell and Hamill ended up with Michael Ferguson chasing a through ball and colliding with the keeper (the keeper survived!), and Calum Togneri was on point to put Bangor in the lead.

Close to the end Antrim brought on a sub who had played the game before but still had the legs to chase a huge cross field ball and nipped in to score seven minutes from time, soon after Rowan McConkey made a crucial interception and from there Bangor were unlucky not to score again in the closing stages.

Man of the Match went to Allan Stevenson for an excellent performance closely followed by Dale Kirkpatrick. Thanks to Phillip Hamill, the fifths mascot for the day! All in all a valuable point from a tough match for the fifths who have a big game against Banbridge this Saturday.