L4 Back To Winning Ways

Following the tough fixtures off late today's game proved to be the perfect tonic for us to gain some much needed confidence and get back to winning ways. It was a depleted squad with several players missing but massive credit needs to be given to the 12 lads who went out there and showed a positive reaction from last week's heavy defeat vs BRNESC. Everything we lacked a week earlier we had in abundance and from the very first whistle the lads were up for it. Alex McDonald came straight into the side to make his debut and it took just 10 minutes to open his account latching and to a clever flick from his strike partner Gift to keep his composure one v one with the keeper. Gift then added a second minutes later knocking in the re-bound following some excellent link up play down the left hand side by Jude Carroll and Dan Galvin. Dan's work rate was outstanding last week even when we were 10-1 down he was still running his socks off and he took that into today's performance. Ethan came off the bench in the 24th minute to give us a bit more attacking threat and he very nearly scored with his first touch only to see his well struck effort rattle the crossbar. Two minutes later however it was Alex McDonald who struck again and showed exactly why he had been brought in. There is no denying that both Gift and Ross have done well for us since losing Mikey but we finally look like we've got that natural finisher back in the side. Not only is Alex a very clever player who plays on the shoulder and makes intelligent runs into space he is great in front of goal. Paddy has been looking to play those defence splitting balls all season but up until today hadn't recorded a single assist that stat may soon increase rapidly with Alex leading the line as he got on the end of a brilliant pass in the 26th minute to again keep his cool to round the keeper and make it 3-0.

The first half was much better in terms of getting back to basics, the lads keep great shape and moved the ball much quicker overall their decision making was a million times better. You could sense there would be more goals and it was just one way traffic. Gift turned provider yet again unselfishly laying one on a plate for Alex to complete his hat-trick 3 minutes into the 2nd half and Jude Carter drilled in a well struck shot for his first of the season on 43 minutes. That was followed by a fine individual goal by Ethan (who is having a great season particularly as an impact player of the bench) and a deflected effort by Paddy for his 2nd of the campaign. Ethan and Gift inflicted more misery of Mersey Kickers who are finding life extremely difficult down at the summit and man of the match Dan Galvin rounded things off with a stunning lob to cap off a great performance. It was also our first clean sheet of the season and that was testament to not only Harry who's been very unlucky of late but to Connor, Pablo, Jude and Kalu who were very well organised at the back.