Let Down!

For the first game of the new season Sky Blue Sport, United’s oldest non-stop web site, stated that anything short of a convincing victory against the Crues, would be frowned upon. After watching yesterday’s debacle, suffice to say we are in serious frown. I fully understand that the Crues were never going to be a pushover, but if we are to be a team to be reckoned with, there are just the sort of team we need to put to the sword. United looked more like a team with a hard season behind them, rather than a team with a spring in their step, looking forward to a prosperous season. Albert Watson, the new team captain struggled to form a convincing partnership with Gary Haveron and they were indebted to new goalkeeper Paul Murphy for saving their blushes. The Crues could and probably should’ve had this game wrapped up at halftime, as they dominated the first half. Ex-Linfield striker Davey Larmour forced Murphy into a good save, hit the crossbar and screwed yet another shot wide, three really good chances and his strike partner twice shot narrowly past Murphy’s upright, although the keeper seemed to have the shots covered. Little was seen of United as an attacking force, but on the rare occasions they did break forward they were ‘scythed’ to the ground by the ‘hatchet men’ ably backed up by referee McFadden. When the visiting defenders hacked our players down he flourished no yellow cards, merely admonishing the culprits, a complete waste of time. Aiden Watson, who has just signed a new two year contract, had his worst ever game in a Sky Blue shirt and was incapable of finding a United player with a pass. But we somehow created the best opening of the half when Paul Brown failed to connect with a free header, with only the keeper to beat. Mark Picking, recently signed from Linfield was a virtual passenger throughout the match and along with Aiden Watson contributed nothing to the Sky Blue cause. Former player Lee Patrick, was little better, but he at least managed to get on the end of a Brown flick, but with the home fans waiting for him to blast the ball goalwards, he tried to ‘bend it’ round the keeper, but only succeeded in hitting it wide of the target. This was as good as it got for United in the first half, but we hoped that manger Wright, serving a one match touchline ban, would somehow be able to convey some instructions to his team during the interval.

Alas the second half was no better than the first and things took a bad turn when ten minutes into the half Lee Patrick limped off with a thigh injury, with Gareth Scates coming on in his place. Scatesy did manage to inject some urgency into his team mates, but the Crues defence held firm. The visitors showed that they had obviously been watching the World cup, as their ‘histrionics’ every time they were tackled was extremely nauseating to say the least. The referee did ignore it for the main part, but with United mounting a rare sustained attack, which resulted in a corner, his attention was drawn to a linesman’s flag. After consulting with the official, he flourished a red card to United’s Paul Brown for allegedly striking an opponent, which the big man says was a total fabrication. But his protests were in vain, but what I couldn’t understand was how the linesman could have witnessed this altercation as he was a good thirty yards away and we all know they can’t see anything more than ten yards away. The referee who had signalled for a corner gave the visitors a goalkick to restart the game, a strange decision to say the least. United strangely enough played their best football when down to ten men, but couldn’t make the vital breakthrough. United assistant manager Jim Grattan took off Andy Rosbotham and brought on Dominic Melly, who gave us a better outlet down the left flank. Melly in fact came close to scoring, when his free kick from twenty-five yards just scraped the post. Grattan then played his final ‘ace’, taking off the ineffective Picking and giving a debut to new signing Austin Friel. What an inspired substitut6ion this was, where Picking had been ineffective, Friel was ‘electric’ and put the visiting defence under some pressure. As he went on one ‘mazy’ run he was deliberately kicked by a visiting player and the referee send him for an early bath as well. This was late in the game and United missed yet another free kick taken by Haveron, which was driven against the Crusaders wall, which was allowed to encroach by the referee. In a rare Crusaders breakaway, Murphy once more thwarted the visitors with a good save. Friel almost made them pay dearly for their misses when he got on the end of a Scates pass but failed to find a way through to goal. The match petered out to a scoreless draw, which left the visitors frustrated, but United feeling incredibly lucky. There’ll need to be a vast improvement if United are to progress in this competition as their next two games are away to Limavady and Portadown and our record at those two grounds doesn’t make for comforting reading!

Murphy 7 Aid Watson 4 MoM: Murphy

Callaghan 6 Brown 6

McClean 6 Kelbie 6

Patrick 5 Rosbotham 5 Referee: P. McFadden 2

Haveron 6 1st Sub: Scates 6

Alb Watson 5 2nd Sub: Melly 6

Picking 4 3rd Sub: Friel 6