Management thoughts on Saturday’s game v the Juniors.

Posted on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

Mike says -

“With the arrangements for Jim’s funeral and then tributes to him fronting the website I thought better of commenting on Saturday’s game until today. There was a large crowd at Warrison yesterday and more than a few Spartans ties in evidence which I sure Jim would have appreciated. Craig’s speech brought home the contribution Jim made from the conception to the fruition of the Academy and I’ll think of him every time I come through the front door by just raising my view to the stain glass Spartan. 

Jim would have liked what was on view last Saturday. We were without Chris Flockhart, Danny O’Donnell, Stewart Fowlie, Gavin Malin, Kevin Sivewright and Chris Smith (who failed a fitness test before the game) but that gave opportunities for Craig McGarrie, Phil McKibben and Luke Cassidy to get some game time and of course a debut for young Daniel Shields.

In a close competitive game played at a pace which pleased both management teams we were 3-2 up when the blizzard descended around the 85th minutes and Sam called a halt to proceedings. We lined up with Craig in goal, a back four of Robbie, Archie, Dan and Phil; a midfield of Omar, Wee Eck, Sean and Deano with Donal and Cloudie up front.

It was end to end stuff and with a solid performance by Archie and Dan in central defence I always thought we held a slight upper hand. Donal scored from a Deano corner in 14 minutes but that was cancelled out 18 minutes later after a sweeping move down the left by the Juniors which Iain Cartwright finished off.

At half-time we brought Luke on giving Cloudie a rest and swapped Robbie and Omar around. Deano made it 2-1 from close range on the hour and after a great run down the right by Omar his cross was turned in by a defender 10 minutes later. By this time we’d taken Donal off, pushed Omar through the middle and brought Daniel on at right back where he looked assured, played with his head up and passed the ball well. Nick Reid pulled one back before the heavens opened.

 Bounce games can be a waist of time if the players don’t treat them seriously enough but that was not the case on Saturday. There is a respect between the top two Spartans teams and an attitude in the home dressing room to go out and prove a point every time we meet. The players take much more from an exercise like that than from a normal training session and Sam, Mike, David and myself were happy with application shown by both sides.

As I write there’s a good chance training will be off tonight and I’ll confirm either way to the players later by text and Email. This will be my last contribution before Friday so I’d like to thank everyone working at the Academy for their help so far this season and wish them, our players and management and yourselves a happy Christmas.”

Mike