by Colm Murphy, Newry City U14 Manager

Newry played their first league home match against neighbours Camlough Rovers on Saturday last at the Showsgrounds back pitch. In a highly entertaining game Newry started slowly to a more physical Camlough team, who had the first chance to take the lead but squandered the opportunity. This sprung Newry into life who started to play some excellent football, moving the ball around and they created numerous chances, only to be denied by some fine goalkeeping. They eventually went ahead through a Tiernan O’Reilly penalty after a hand ball in the penalty area by one of the Camlough defenders. Newry were on top of their game at this stage and a second penalty followed only this time O’Reilly blasted wide. Halftime approached and Newry for all their good play went in only the one goal to the good.

The second half started bright for Newry and again after some good play along the wing by ex-Camlough player Caolan Reavey, Newry earned a free kick about 10 yards outside the penalty area. Tiarnan Murphy showed great skill by curling the ball over the wall and into the top corner of the net to make it 2-0 to Newry. From the Camlough kick off Newry regained possession and should have gone 3-0 up only to be denied by the post after some great work by Shea Morgan and Joseph Connolly. This seemed to spring life into the Camlough team and after some fine passing their efforts resulted in a corner kick. From the resulting corner the Newry defence were unable to clear their lines and Camlough pulled a goal back to make the match 2-1 in favour of Newry City. The last 15 minutes saw Newry soak up attack after attack from a rejuvenated Camlough forward line. Eventually the final whistle sounded and Newry had another win.

While it was great to get another win, Newry need to work on finishing their opponents off earlier and taking their opportunities when they arise. There were some fine individual performances from Tiarnan Russell and Aidan Ovesen in defence with Shea Morgan stamping his authority in midfield and Caolon Reavey, Tiernan O Reilly and Tiarnan Murphy causing a lot of problems up front. Again though it is the overall team performance that wins games and Newry showed this to earn a hard fought victory.

I would like to say thanks to the many parents that showed up for the game and to John Moffatt (U13 Manager) and Mickey Morgan (U15 Manager) for coming down and supporting the lads. Next game is away to Tullyvallen in Newtownhamilton this Saturday at 10am.