Something Right!

There's an old saying when talking about people making a success in their life,that goes, you must be doing something right. This phrase could well be attributed to our beloved Sky Blues, we did nearly everything wrong yesterday, but we did some things right and we survived to fight another day. I've no doubt in my mind, that this was due to a large slice of luck on our part and despite our manager selecting the wrong players, he used his 'get out of jail free card', IMO.

Why he chose to start with Captain Jenks up front with Tippers and leave two strikers, Darboy and Cutch on the bench, beggars belief. He played  Jenks up front, along with the 'rested' Tippers and the rest obviously done Tippers no good, for he struggled to get to grips with the pitch and the pace of the game. Did Spike, think it was Cutch that was to blame for the abject failure of playing Jenks up front, the last time out against Chickenville.

Cutch wasn't by any means good against the Reds, but he did set up Thommo, for our only shot on target in that game. But the biggest mistake Spike made, IMO, was to give a debut to rookie leftback  Craig Gardiner, instead of jigging his two fullbacks, the vastly experienced, Jimer and to a lesser extent, Tony and getting one of them to fill in at leftback. This was to prove costly, as Gardiner gave away a penalty, which the Welders scored by letting his man go inside and he got caught in possession, instead of crossing the ball, which led to the Welders second goal.

I was always told (there was no coaching in my day and I played fullback), to never let the winger or anybody get inside of you, for you're wrong-footed then, better to direct him toward the touchline, where you can get a tackle in or close him down until help arrives. Maybe I'm being a bit hard on the youngster here, our back-four was trying to play offside and MM was definitely offside but Middleton wasn't and the play was waved on. So Gardiner was the only man that could've got a tackle in, but he was no match for the Welders player.

JT has been struggling for awhile and yesterday was no exception, MM, the former striker with the Sky Blues, who our manager, in his wisdom decided to discard in favour of Tippers, at the start of this season, had JT in his pocket nearly the whole of the game. But JT got a nasty looking knock in the second half and Fergie had to bring on Cookie and after that, MM's threat was greatly reduced and Jimer moved to leftback and we reverted to 4,3,3. This was the formation that the 'Sports crew had thought, Spike would go for, but he had other ideas.

All in all Spike, made three changes from his starting line-up of last weeks game against the Reds. Out went the unlucky and injury-prone, Ruddy and in came youngster Crag Gardiner. The cup-tied Maca (I don't know why he played last week), was replaced by the Barber, who had  poor game on his return to the team. Cutch, was not at his best, on the unnatural surface of Solitude last Saturday, why he chose to go to the Crues and leave the Sky blues where he was close to receiving cult status, I'll never know, made way for the rested, but ring rusty, Tippers, who hadn't played for 19 days.

United won the toss and elected to play towards the dressing rooms in the first half and should have been one up in the first minute. A Welders defender tried to head back to his keeper, but if fell short and Captain Jenks latched on to it, but with the goal at his mercy, his shot hit the keepers legs and the chance was lost. A natural goalscorer would have buried it in the back of the net, but our Captain is a makeshift striker and as such, he doesn't have the instincts that top strikers need. It was so good of a chance, that the much maligned former Sky Blue player, Gary Liggett, would have buried it, it was that easy.

When the players were warming up before the game, Sammy, my right-hand man, remarked that he couldn't see any sense in their six a side game, as in his opinion, the players were tiring themselves out before the match had started. United are notoriously slow starters and the number of goals that we ship in the opening ten mins of games, beggars belief, so maybe Sammy has  a point. After ten mins Thommo, burst into the penalty area, but his shot was blocked and as luck would have it, it fell to the Captain once again, but this time a defender blocked his shot, another good chance gone begging.

United were nearly made to pay for this benevolence in front of goal, when MM slipped JT and brought a fine save from Tall, in the United goal, with a rasping shot. At the other end Tippers, found his Captain with a gem of a pass, but Jenks fluffed that chance and his half-hit shot, was scrambled away by Welders keeper Dougherty, yet another glaring miss. Little was seen of the out of form Cush, but Sammy remarked, that he's not fully fit, as he needed a knee operation mid-season and only returned to the side as a sub at the league cup final.

United were concentrating all their efforts on their right-flank but after 20 mins the Welders got wise to this ploy and snuffed it out. Referee Ian 'not so 'andy McNabb, had a poor game and despite yellow carding a Welders defender for a heavy challenge on Cush, when he was the last man, he let  too many things go unpunished from that moment on.. I thought it should have been a red card, not because he was the last man, as he was, but for the brutality of the tackle, but 'andy thought different. The Barber's corners and long throw-ins placement, seemed to have deserted him and we never looked dangerous from a set-piece taken by him, whereas at the start of the season, we looked set to score every-time, he was that good.

The lino in our half of pitch, near the only stand, was sleeping and a Welders player, was two yards offside, but he wasn't up with the play. A word here about the ground, how this ground is suitable for Irish cup action beggars belief. Its a muck heap and I'm not talking about the pitch here. They have cement slabs laid down in single file, for spectators who would rather not step on wet grass, but no drainage and heavy rain, as there was yesterday, turns it into a calamity waiting to happen, as there was a a puddle that covered at least two of the slabs and we had to step on the grass, which was treacherous to say the least.

There's no railing in front of the only stand and there was a bit of 'argy bargy' with a Welders official, who was definitely 'out of order' and some of our fans, which could've led to an ugly incident, luckily this was avoided, but only just. The pitch looks like it hasn't seen a roller since our chairman was in short trousers and there's a hollow in the middle that looks like a bomb crater, but the IFA, in its wisdom say its alright for Irish cup games, we know all about the IFA's shortcomings, they couldn't run a raffle.

But in saying that, the Welders got a grip on the game after our missed chances and played good football and put our defence under pressure and about ten mins before halftime, we cracked. It was IMO, a rather soft penalty as Gardiner and Middleton were struggling to assert themselves, but Middleton went down and the ref pointed to the spot. I don't know if he consulted the fifth official (or was the sixth), who was behind our goal, but our defenders appealed to him, but to no avail. MM, stepped up and sent Tall the wrong way and gave the Welders a deserved lead, 1-0.

MM made his way over to our fans, who had been foolishly berating him and I think he was justified, I'm not privy to the in and outs of our players reasons for leaving but I'm led to believe that our manager released him and he joined the Welders and yesterdays two goals meant he has scored 37 goals, not a bad return for somebody who wasn't considered good enough for our bench in the Irish cup final last May, when we were crying out for a striker, but Spike knows best. The halftime interval was reached at 14-20hrs, there had been a delay as one of nets was not pinned down properly and there was at least two stoppages for injuries.


2nd half
Our players were out on the pitch again after ten minutes not the normal 15 mins and I was at a loss to guess the reason for this short-time break. Were the players being punished for their slip shod defending and their benevolence in front of goal, I was nonplussed to say the least. They had to stand about for five mins and I could see they were shivering and looking like a team with no leaders, on the pitch or off it. The Welders obviously were buoyed by these events and they went at United for the off and it brought its rewards.

A cross came into the box from the left flank and Tall Tim came to claim it and fell over MM who had ducked, Tall fumbled the ball and MM scored into the empty net. To my utter relief and Tall's I'm sure, 'andy disallowed the goal, but as far as I was concerned, there had been no foul, Tall should've punched the ball, instead of trying to catch it. Buoyed by this good fortune, United went down the other end and won a corner. The ball was cleared to United's left flank and young Gardiner decided to take men on, instead getting a cross into the box.

He subsequently lost the ball and the Welders, set up a counter attack with Magennis and MM  who eventually scored, but I thought Jimer should have got a tackle in but he dithered and MM slotted the ball into the net to make the score 2-0 in the home teams favour. It was no more than they deserved, they were playing all the football and we were playing hit and hope balls at their defence, instead of trying to find a man with a defence splitting pass.

At last Fergie acted and took off the youngster, Gardiner and brought on Darboy. I foolishly thought we would jig our defenders and get back to a back four, but we went 3,4,3 and we continued to struggle to get a grip in midfield and to deal with the threat of MM, who was looking for his hat-trick at this stage. Spike had seen enough of the Barber, when he had to chance to deliver a short throw-in to Tippers, who was in oceans of space, but he delayed and took a long one which came to nothing.

Replacing the Barber with Cutch, meant we had three strikers on the pitch, but no ideas of how to go about using them and we continued to play hit and hope. JT went down injured but he tried to carry on but he had to be  replaced by Cookie and we reverted to a back four and the familiar 4,3,3. Our two fullbacks, Jimer and Tony, were creating inroads into the Welders back line and when Thommo surged forward, as he is  wont to do, he was tripped in the box and 'andy eventually pointed to the spot. In the absence of regular penalty kick taker, Ally, left on the subs bench, Tippers grabbed the ball, but his weak penalty was easily saved by Dougherty.

Sammy said to me I don't think we will score today and I had to agree with him and I thought to myself, we don't deserve to score. But the Welders were struggling with the pace of the game and were defending deeper and deeper and giving away free-kicks. Two mins after missing the penalty, Tony gave us a lifeline when his cross was headed across goal by Cush and the unmarked Darboy, headed home to reduce the leeway to 2-1. Could we salvage something from the match at this late stage and get to extra-time.

Five mins later I had my answer, Cutch was taking all our corners now and they were miles better than the Barber's. His in-swinger was headed back across goal and Tippers volleyed it home, off the underside of the bar with the keeper helpless. The Sky Blue fans went wild and there were singing and shouting, we had drawn level from a seemingly hopeless position and we were looking forward to extra-time, but we weren't finished just yet.

The Welders had been time-wasting nearly the whole of the second-half and I think the ref added some time on for this. Cometh the hour, cometh the man and that man turned out to Thommo, who capped a 'man of the match' performance with the winner. In a goalmouth scramble, Captain Jenks shot dropped to Gary and he slotted home. Our fans were delirious and some of them were on the pitch and Tony Kane was hugging everybody in sight, luckily we were at the back of the stand, lol.

From the Welder's centre, they gave the ball away to Tippers and he hoofed it up-field and the ref blew his final whistle and we had come back from the dead. Is our name on the cup, it looks like it, but we have another hurdle to overcome to get to the final, lets hope we are up for that one and don't leave it to the last minute, my nerves can't take much more of this. I thought the Welders were unlucky, but we got there by our never say die attitude, who would bet against us getting to the final for the second season running, I definitely wouldn't!

Tall (6), Jimer (6), Gardiner (5) (Sub: Darboy 7,), JT (5) (Sub: Cookie 7), Paddy Mac (7), Gawley (5) (Sub: Cutch 7,), Thommo (8), Tony (7), Cush (6), Tippers (7), Jenks (6)

Man of the match: Thommo