NAFL Division League Division 1B
Aquinas 3 Bryansburn 1
WITH Paddy Lowe out for the Bryansburn game, Aquinas drafted in Joe McGroggan to play up front as the South Belfast side aimed to build on Saturday’s Irish Cup win.
Lowe has been impressive for the South Belfast team so far this season and he will be missed over the following few games. Otherwise, the Aquinas team welcomed their league rivals to Rathmore unchanged.
The new manager at Bryansburn, Graham McConnell, brought a very changed team to Belfast compared to previous encounters between these two.
On a miserable, wet evening, there was an anticipation that this game might answer some questions about who would be contenders for the league this season.
Despite running out 3-1 winners, having several shots cleared off the line and two hitting the post, Aquinas certainly cannot yet claim to be contenders.
At times they were untidy and inconsistent in their build up play. It always felt, throughout the game, that they would gift the visitors another goal.
The game started well for the home team. Just as in previous games, the opponents struggled with the three in the home team’s midfield.
With five minutes played, it looked as though Aquinas would run riot in this game.
When Dan McDonald skipped around full-back Andy Reay to get to the Bryansburn by-line, he looked up to see the visitors’ box flooded with Aquinas players. His ball across the six-yard box narrowly missed the outstretched high toe of Martin Ramsey, but it connected perfectly with on-coming Garret Cullen who volleyed it home at the back post.
Bryansburn captain Joshua Ferguson, playing as a nine, increasing was being used to drop deep into midfield to cope with Aquinas’s domination of the game, but it never really worked as Cullen broke from midfield and smashed the visitors’ post with 10 minutes played.
Dan McDonald was running past their midfield with ease. However, the home team were wasteful in the final third and there was a sense the game could flip should Aquinas continue to be this complacent.
It did just that on the 12-minute mark, as from their first and only corner of the game, Matthew White scored at the near post.
Goals change games and now Aquinas had handed all the momentum to a team they had on the back foot.
As the game edged towards half-time, it increasingly looked as though the home team had lost the initiative. There was an anxiousness that the home players had brought on themselves.
To their credit, Caoylan Lynch, Botanic Inn’s man-of-the-match, and Keven Keenan did manage to swing the game back to Aquinas. These two players have pushed into the first team and secured starting positions and they deserve their positions.
Aquinas built on Saturday's 1-0 win over St Luke's in the Irish Cup
Lynch made one of his trademark runs on the right wing and lifted the ball high and into the path of Keenan breaking from midfield. In a one-to-one with Ben Fry the Bryansburn ’keeper, it was Keenan who bravely got the first touch on the ball to place it past the courageous Fry and make it 2-1.
Ramsey had one cleared off the line on the 40-minute mark following good link-up play with his midfielders in a one-touch sequence.
McDonald was again pivotal in all that was good about Aquinas going forward. As the half came to a close, Cullen’s shot wide was another indication of the frustration being felt around Rathmore.
The game should have been beyond sight, yet it remained finely balanced at 2-1.
Matthew McDowell and Lewis Stevenson were replaced with Joseph Sowerby and Matthew Higginson and the visitors switched to a 4-3-3 with Higginson the target man up top. Frazer MacKinnon played wide right of the three and Higginson dropped into midfield.
Changes in formation and personnel did nothing to improve the Bryansburn performance.
However, when the Aquinas manager brought on Ryan Jenkins, he had an immediate impact on his team. His talking, presence and calmness on the ball brought a much-needed order to this game. His clever ball to McDonald on the overlap opened the visitors on their left.
The midfielder took on Charlie Park at right full-back leaving him and his team mates flat-footed. His one-two with Ramsey opened up a clear shot on goal for Jenkins who placed it just over the crossbar from the edge of the box.
Finally, the game had a real energy and although the score remained 2-1, there was no doubt about who would win this one.
Four minutes later the young Aquinas striker Joe McGroggan got his name on the score sheet. He made and finished this goal with an explosive run on the left.
He skipped past Park and Morrison at center back and played the ball hard along the goal line. The ball came back off a melee of legs and McGroggan was on the spot to place it into the roof of the net.
The introduction of Andrew Curran-Cochrane into the game for Bryansburn was too-little, too-late for the visitors, while the introduction of Darragh Doherty for Aquinas again lifted the atmosphere at the ground and the game itself. The busy midfielder threatened their backline repeatedly.
James McKee saw his header hit the bar in the 75th minute after Doherty forced a corner and Cullen was denied a second goal when his fine strike was stopped on the line by the last Bryansburn defender.
The best move of the game came right at the end when Doherty again took on Park and Morrison in the visitors’ backline. Several step-overs later he was past them and his floated ball on to Lynches head for a cushioned lay off to an oncoming Ramsey run and headed strike seemed to have made it 4-1. How Fry got a hand to it is a mystery.
Despite winning both games this week, Aquinas will have to look at the chances they gave both St Luke’s and Bryansburn to punish them.
There is no doubting the work rate, the will and depth of talent on show at Rathmore and Twinbrook but Aquinas were not as clinical as they should have been when they could have been.
