Cold Comfort!

When I arrived at a cold Showgrounds yesterday I was amazed at our manager, Spike's, selections. He had picked four central defenders, surely a negative ploy I thought, a what we have, we'll hold and so it proved. The fit again Johnny Taylor didn't even make the bench and Dolan, Ruddy and Alan D were dropped. In came Cookie Munster and Shaun Maher to form a new central defensive pair, Archie moved to leftback in place of Ruddy and McCullagh moved to rightback allowing Tony Kane to take up central midfield duties, alongside Jenks and Sparky. Cush and Ally retained their places and we had Liggie leading the line. We seemed to be playing two formations, when the Glens had the ball, which was about 70% of the time, we reverted to a 4,5,1 formation and we had the ball, we tried to play a 4,3,3 formation, but our passing was atrocious and we invariable lost possession and had to revert to defensive tactics.

Tony Kane struggled for the first 10 minutes and then he got to grips with his role and thereafter had a good game. When playing alongside Jenks, you have got to realise that he doesn't tackle, merely directs, but expects you to tackle for him, Tony and Sparky did this superbly yesterday. Speaking of Jenks, he did half-heartedly go into some tackles yesterday and if he had went with more purpose, he would have won the ball, as the Glens players didn't like the sticky surface that is Ballymena's Showgrounds at the moment. The Glens had lost keeper Morris and defender Magee during the warm-up and had to promote Aaron Hogg, their second string keeper to their starting line-up and Colin Nixon stepped up from bench to replace Magee. Referee Colin Burns had a stinker of a match, failing to even caution a Glens player for a brutal tackle on United's keeper Dwayne Nelson shortly after halftime, which left him hobbling for the remainder of the game, this sort of tackling on keepers went out many years ago when Omar was a boy.

However he had no hesitation in showing two yellow cards to United's David Cushley, which I have no argument with, but in contrast with this, he let Jason Hill of Glens off without even a ticking off for a brutal foul on United sub Peter Duffin and 2 mins later ignored a blatant shirt pull on the same player from Hill, when he burst into the Glens box. He also ignored a high tackle on United's Ally Teggart, reminiscent of Nana's sending off for Man U, not even a booking, but his worst clanger was not sending off Stephen Carson off for a deliberate elbow on United's Mark McCullagh, who had to come off. I don't like to criticise referees for they have a hard job, but fairs,fair, show some consistency, if you're going to book brutal tackles, do it, but if you going to let one team get away with them, you have to let the other team away with them also. He also let Colin Nixon take a dive in the United penalty area to try and con him, without booking him for simulation, talk about rose tinted glasses!

As Glens had their 2nd string keeper I was hoping for United to try and test him with a shot early on, but we had to wait nearly 20 minutes in for Liggie to try from long range, but unfortunately it was straight at the keeper and he pushed it easily over the bar, a text book save. The linesman at the Fisherwick end missed an offside and O'Hanlon was allowed to cross the ball, but luckily no Glens player could get a touch, thereafter the linesman didn't miss an offside the rest of the match, but missed several other incidents like the shirt pull and the Carson elbow, both of which he had a perfect view. Tony Kane had a shot well saved by Hogg, which had goal written all over it, but the keeper done well to push it for a corner. From this corner, Maher was unlucky to see his header clear the bar and in a spell of United pressure, a Jenks volley which was going wide was deflected for a corner. The visitors fullback Ward had to go off with what looks like a knee injury and the Glens for all their possession, didn't trouble the United defence, where Cookie and Maher were superb.

2nd half
The second half started the same way as the first, with the Glens in possession and United trying to hit them on the break. The match had barely restarted when the visitors won a corner on their left, the Slemish stand side. When this corner came over Dwayne rose superbly and claimed the ball only to suffer a brutal late tackle from a Glens player who had no mission of getting the ball. I fully expected the referee to brandish the red card, for this sort of tackle is no longer acceptable or a yellow card and a good ticking off, but he took no action against the culprit. Dwayne was able to continue after 3 mins of treatment, but you could see he was hurt and he was hobbling for the rest of game. Referee Burns intimated that he had already gave the free-kick, but I never saw the signal and the United defenders who had been far closer to the action than me didn't seem to know, as they kicked the ball into touch so as Dwayne could receive treatment.

Five minutes later Carson dispossessed McCullagh near the Glens goal-line and shrugged off the United man's attention by a blatant elbow, ignored by both the referee and linesman. The Glentoran physio, George Magill, who had a spell as United caretaker-manager in the 1990's, treated McCullagh as our own physio was with Dwayne to see if he needed further treatment. Mark had to come off replaced by Thommo and Kane moved to rightback and we lost his tackling in midfield. It was backs to wall now but Dwayne soldiered on and United continued to try and hit on the break. Cush lost the plot when he lost possession in the Glens box and he late tackled a Glens defender and immediately got a yellow card for it. A bad tackle admittedly but no worse than the Glens player on Nelson and the injured party lay writhing on the ground, but he was only bluffing and was able continue without treatment.

Then we had the high tackle on Ally which was worse than the Cush tackle, but the referee didn't flourish the card and moments later Cush committed a reckless challenge on Glens defender Callaher and the referee couldn't get the yellow card out quick enough, followed by the customary red. Cush knew he was a silly boy, he had showed his frustration and he had paid the penalty and he had to go, I hope the club fine for his reckless challenge which looked to have cost us the points and I was at odds with the spectators who applauded him off. After he messed up yet again, Spike finally lost patience with Liggie, who had been a virtual passenger in the United attack in the 2nd half and brought young Peter Duffin on. United were on the rack and Dwayne kept them in the match with some good saves, despite hobbling and Kane was taking all the goal-kicks. When United tried to attack with Peter Duffin, he was brutally fouled by Hill, aided and abetted by the referee.

The United passing was atrocious, Thommo had a chance to set Duffin on his way, but the ball got stuck in the mud, but there was no excuse for that, he had plenty of space to hit it into. Then near the end Howland missed with a free header and Waterworth shot straight at Nelson. Despite only being two subs used per team in the 2nd half, the referee allowed 4 minutes stoppage time and played five. United were denied a cast iron penalty when Hill tugged Duffin's shirt inside the box but referee Burns ignored our claims and our manager, Spike, was so incensed he had to be restrained by the 4th official. The referee finally brought the curtain down on a marathon session which had run over by about 12 minutes all told and United had been vindicated and had claimed a point, but it was dire stuff to watch. But horses for courses so they say and next week away to Portadown the same will do nicely, methinks, but let's have Peter Duffin on from the start and a good referee, oh please let's have any referee, but not this stuffed dummy!

Dwayne Nelson (9), McCullagh (7)(Sub: Thommo 6), Archie (7), Maher (8), Cookie (8), Kane (8), Sparky (8), Jenks (6), Ally (7), Cush (6), Liggie (6)(Sub: Duffin 7,)

Man of the match: Dwayne Nelson