Northern Ireland Women's Football Association

Match Report

YMCA 0 Crusaders Newtownabbey Strikers 3

Last night’s rainsodden game in the Davisons Frudles Premier league saw top of the table Strikers travel away to YMCA.

Played on a quality surface and refereed very fairly by Mervyn McAleese, the game featured quality football and lengthy passages of play. Evidence for this was the lower number of match stoppages for thrown-ins, free kicks and goal kicks with the exception of a serious injury to the YMCA keeper which led to her removal from the field of play just after half-time due to the recurrence of a head injury. In the overall balance of play, Strikers were clearly dominant in every aspect, creating 14 goalchances in total to YMCA’s two.

Of these, most were from open play but, ironically, it was a quality delivery from Julie Nelson’ set piece free kick that created the first goal. Her centre back partner, Sara Booth, rose well to head the ball beyond the reach of the YMCA keeper on 15 minutes. Despite going 1-0 down, YMCA were confident in building play from their back with Kendra McMullan being their stand-out player yet again.

This effort wasn’t enough to put consistent pressure on the Strikers’ defence and, following a number of attempts on goal from Strikers’ front two over the course of the next 25 minutes, Helen McKenna finally got her reward on 39 minutes to make the half-time
score 2-0 in favour of the visitors.

The second half was more or less one way traffic, not least because of Strikers’ dominance despite some key positional changes
and substitutions, but also because of the aforementioned injury to the YMCA keeper which led to an outfield player replacement.

Strikers’ strength in depth is beginning to pay dividends with Emma Murray’s growing confidence in the right back position
while Lynsey Patterson’s player of the match performance at left midfield leaves coach Billy Wylie with a welcome headache.

Helen McKenna got her second goal on 78 mins from distance when, similar to Paul Robinson’s concession in the Euro 2008 qualifiers, the ball took an awkward bounce from a divot and deceived the replacement YMCA keeper to leave the final score at 3-0 to Strikers. YMCA should take a lot of heart from their overall performance and their willingness to continue to play open football considering their opposition are current league leaders also preparing for their UEFA venture in August. For Strikers, retention of league remains their key focus and they face Cliftonville in their next league match.

This marks their return to Seaview for the newly relaid artificial surface and a renewing of recent rivalries after the Strikers’ handsome victory in the Coca Cola Cup.

report -: Dr Katie Liston

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