Irish Premier League

2nd October

Newry Town 1 Glentoran 0

Glens Fail to Score Once Again

Believe it or not the Champions have now failed to register an away goal in 427 minutes of league football.  The Glens lost Chris Walker, sent off after only four minutes in a hotly disputed decision by the unqualified like Referee Michael Ross.  Walker was dismissed for an alleged remark to the linesman.

But Glens boss Roy Coyle is giving his full backing to the player who pleaded his innocence.  He is a lad whose honesty I hold in the highest esteem and I totally believe him said Coyle.

Newry's goal was a real gem though in a pretty even first half hour. Mark Rutherford signed from Shelbourne last season picked the ball up mid way in the visitors half skinned two Glentoran defenders one which was John Kennedy infact Rutherford skinned Kennedy for most of the 90 minutes. Kennedy miss-timed his challenge and Rutherford skillfully dribbled the ball around him before shooting from the most acute angle and the ball rifled in off Armstrong's far post a wonder goal but where was the Glens defence?  It was always going to be tough for the Champions at the Showground's today, I have never been to a more hideous ground in my life but the Home side remain unbeaten there since last March.

The Glens went close to equalizing near the end of the first half with the again impressive McCann crossed a dream ball into the box and Hamill threw himself at it and made great contact, the away fans all thought it had nestled in the net but had come so close to creeping in off the post but had gone wide.

In the second half the Glens defence was again very shaky and nervous looking with Nixon making numerous mistakes who was playing center half because of the absence of Walker with Leeman in Right Back but Newry failed to capitalize on the mistakes and the Glens should have really turned  their mistakes into goals.  Numerous times the Champions missed sitters and if it wasn't a sitter it was very close.  The Newry defence didn't know where they were half of the time and the Goalkeeper persisted in time wasting and Ross never even spoke to him about it.  The most annoying things were that the Newry Stewards actually told the ball boys not to get the ball which led to the goalkeeper walking to the wherever the ball landed and took a hell of a long time to retrieve the ball.  At half time a Glentoran fan walked up to a police man and requested to go home but surprisingly the Police rejected this and told him he was not allowed to leave the ground, I won't go on about this as this happened in other similar circumstances.

John Kennedy playing basically as a Striker came close on 2 occasions, his best chance when a sweet left foot pass cut open the Newry defence once more and Kennedy rolled the ball past the Keeper, Connolly but bounced off the far post and was cleared.  The most impressive Glens played was Substitute Liam Kelly who replaced the again disappointing Summer signing Brian Russell. Kelly showed great vision and superb touches and flicks in his half hour spell and maybe should have grabbed the Glens deserved goal a minute from time when again was put through with a superb touch had beaten the Newry defence but unfortunately  rolled the ball past the far post.

So the Glens failed to score again but we will pull through this and hopefully Russell is rested and give the impressive Liam Kelly on loan from Shelbourne a deserved chance for Tuesday's game against Ards and against Coleraine on Saturday

Team