- Simon O'Gorman
- Fri, Apr 07 2017
A late winner from James English secured three points for Shelbourne against Cabinteely at Stradbrook on Friday night, in a game will not live long in the memory.
With both teams on a decent run of form more might have been expected in terms of excitement from this fixture but a bobbly surface set the tone and from the first whistle the ball spent more time in the air than it did on the ground.
With little creativity coming from open play it seemed that set pieces might offer the best chance of an opening goal and Shelbourne certainly had plenty of those. However, they consistently failed to find either of Alan Byrne or Derek Prendergast and Michael Kelly in the Cabinteely goal was well protected by his defenders with Conor Keeley in particular proving formidable under incoming corners and free kicks.
Shels midfielder Mark Hughes was first to come close to a goal, dipping his half volley just over Kelly’s crossbar after nine minutes while Kieran Marty Waters was a whisker away from putting Cabinteely in front eleven minutes later. But he had to watch his chip creep wide of the far corner of the goal with Dean Delany beaten.
Shelbourne came closer still on 28 minutes when Adam Evans’ cross from the left was mis-controlled by Keeley and Dayle Rooney’s shot on the swivel arced agonisingly away from the goal and slipped wide.
The second half improved considerably with greater efforts from both sides to play the ball on the ground. Evan Galvin and Kevin Knight combined well down the left for Cabinteely while good interplay between Adam O’Connor and Rooney almost paid off for The Reds when O’Connor’s attempt to beat Kelly at his near post was just inches off target.
Adam Evans became something of a torment to Cabinteely, ranging down the left flank for the visitors and it was Shelbourne who began to dominate as the game progressed. Despite this they struggled to turn possession into opportunity and we entered the last fifteen minutes with the home side still occasionally threatening to steal the game on the break.
Chris Lyons came into the fray for Shels with ten minutes remaining, added a welcome level of threat for the visitors but neither side could find that little bit of quality needed to unlock a stubborn defence. Until the 87th minute, that is.
With time running out and a scoreless draw looking likely, Lyons managed to find James English inside the Cabinteely box and despite the close attention of two marking defenders the Reds’ striker wriggled free and poked a shot wide of Kelly and into the bottom left corner of the net.
It might have come late but Shelbourne deserved the win, their third on the spin, while Cabinteely will know that greater consistency is needed if their recent positive momentum is to have a lasting effect.
Cabinteely: Michael Kelly; Karl Byrne (Jason Byrne 85), Christian Lotefa, Conor Keeley, Kevin Knight; Jack Watson, Daire Doyle (Adam Harney 90), Anthony Dolan, Evan Galvin; Kieran Marty Waters; Joe Doyle.
Subs Not Used: Jack Menton, Aaron Robinson, Paul Fox, Robert Duggan, Steven Ball.
Booked: K Byrne (32).
Shelbourne: Dean Delany; Adam O’Connor, Alan Byrne, Derek Prendergast, Reece McEnteer; Lorcan Shannon (Chris Lyons 79), Mark Hughes, James O’Brien, Dayle Rooney, Adam Evans; James English.
Subs Not Used: Jamie Quinn, James Brown, Jack Tuite, Dylan Grimes, David O’Leary, Aaron Ashe.
Booked: J O’Brien (27).
Referee: Andrew Mullally.
Attendance: 300 (estimate)
Extratime Man of the Match: Adam O’Connor (Shelbourne).
