Southcoast Athletic 1 Corkbeg 2. A super win on a horrible night for a game of football. Tariq Tynan & Shane Bennett with the Corkbeg goals. The match report is below:
Corkbeg had a great win on the road in AULDiv1 on a horrible Tuesday evening in Shanbally, when they defeated Southcoast Athletic by two goals to one. It was an awful night for a football match, as rain drove down for the entire ninety minutes with a heavy cross-field wind and both teams deserve a lot of credit for trying to keep the ball on the ground in trying conditions.
Southcoast looked very lively early on and were full of running and passing. Former Cobh Wanderers man Jason McCarthy was pulling the strings in midfield and both Ian Cregan & Matej Vrlijack looked dangerous up front. McCarthy went close with a spectacular effort from 40 yards, that narrowly missed the top corner and Corkbeg goalkeeper Eric Higgins had to be alert to push over another effort from JP Thompson. It might have taken Corkbeg a while to settle down, but from the 15th minute, they took the game by the scruff of the neck and never looked back. They almost went ahead on 20 minutes, when a Southcoast defender mis-headed a clearance towards his own goal, but former Cobh Wanderers & Midleton goalkeeper Jason Greene got back to make an astonishing save, clawing the ball over the bar for a corner. Shane Bennett, Alan Hogan & Tariq Tynan were all heavily involved and Josh Allens clever flick almost gave Corkbeg the lead, but Greene saved again. Towards the end of the half, a poor clearance from Greene was returned from 45 yards by Alan Horgan, but the ball sailed narrowly over and the teams remained deadlocked at half time.
Corkbeg continued to dominate and within the opening minute of the second half, a strong run & shot by substitute Kevin O Hanlon, save his deflected shot clawed away by Jason Greene. Tariq Tynan then saw his clever cross-shot tipped away by Greene. But on the hour, the goal that Corkbeg deserved finally arrived, when Corkbeg substitute Dylan O Neill delivered a fantastic ball across goal for Tariq Tynan to slide home at the back post. Southcoast offered little in return, with Liam O brien in particular impressing for Corkbeg at the back and the closest Southcoast came was a speculative effort from Matej Vrlijack which was easily saved by Eric Higgins. Rain continued to pour down and chances continued to arrive for Corkbeg. Alan Hogan forced Greene into another fine save when he sprung through the Southcoast offside trap and Kevin O Hanlons inch perfect ball across goal was begging for somebody to get a touch to it. With ten minutes remaining, Corkbeg doubled their advantage, when Shane Bennett drilled a low 25 yard free kick into the bottom corner past Greene for a 2-0 lead. With 2 minutes left, Southcoast pulled a goal back with a rare attack into Corkbeg territory, when Matej Vrlijacks deflected shot found the bottom corner. But, Southcoast didn’t really threaten again and Corkbeg picked up a hard-fought 3 points on an awful night for football.
Team: E. Higgins, A. Horgan, L. O Brien, J. O Sullivan, S. O Halloran, S. Bennett, J. Ryan, A. Hogan, J. Allen, R. Fletcher, T. Tynan. Subs: K. O Hanlon for Fletcher(45mins), D. O Neill for Allen(55mins), J. Roberts for A. Hogan(85mins)