The result was an outstanding victory for the lads from GT, cruising to a 17-9 win over the Dublin based Candystripes. What makes the result even more empathic is that GT played with 5 men, no subs, were as the Candystripes played with a squad of 7, having 2 roll-on roll-off subs. The squads were as follows:
Grant Thornton:
Mark
Doug
Nicky
Dara
Manus
Dublin SC:
Morph "The Hitman" Smyth
Stephen "Haircut 100" Large
Grame "Scoops" Taylor
Ronan "The Thug" O'Kane
Ciaran McCauley
Karl McCay
Will "The Child" McCann
GT got off to a flying start in the match, scoring six goals without answer, including a deceptive own goal by Ciaran and a couple of back heals and flicks from Manus. The Candystripes then forced their way onto the score sheet with a cracking own goal from Manus.
After that the Candystripes did tighted up a bit and almost kept pace with the scoring rate of the GT lads, although the fitness of some of the Candystripes, myself included was badly exposed.
With the score poised at 10-5 to GT, they then resorted to under-handed tactics with Manus taking out one of the least effective Candystripes, striking a well powered shot firmly in the McCann Crown Jewels. "The Child" went down like a sack of spuds and was barely able to make it off the pitch. Although this was probably the most comical aspect of the match, I don't view it in this light, as it happened to me and not someone else.
Back on the field our defense did tighten up a bit, but our attack couldn't take the initiative and start banging in the goals, with chances and first touchs not coming off effectively - the sign of a team playing together for the first time.
Then in the last 10 minutes GT upped the pace again and banged in a few more goals to make it a resounding defeat of the Dublin Candystripes. It ended up 17-9 to GT with some fantastic OG's, back heels, mainly from the lads in GT and quality strikes on goal.
Some positives to be taken away from the match:
- a cracker volley from Scoops from a pin point cross from Karl
- the passing got better as the game went on
- better movement off the ball, which will improve the more matchs we get in
- we started to create more chances, although the conversion rate wasn't the best
- my balls have finally dropped back into place
- winning the outside the box scoring 2-1, with a strike from The Thug and Haircut 100 scoring with a well placed free-kick (totally out of frustation me thinks) with Dara scoring a great low drive for GT after running the length of the field
The Dublin SC would like to extend it's thanks to Grant Thornton lads for the match and we'll consider a revenge match at some stage if we improve over the summer.
As for player ratings, I'll let the lads from both team post comments on this.
