On a sticky pitch at Billy Neil the young Colts started brightly, as did Holywood. A few tasty challenges from both sides went unpunished by the ref while other “strange” decisions warranted yellow cards, again on both side, this tone continued throughout the game which meant the tackles got tastier and the ref basically lost all contort, which ended with him blowing the game up 2 minutes early stating how he couldn’t take any more abuse from both lines! What a terrible performance to take £30 fee for!
Anyway, the game was even,y balanced throughout, Peter Duncan was agency in goals and was kept busy by the Holywood front line, with several confined saves and excellent distribution, and in the other goals the Holywood keeper pulled of a string of top drawer saves, noticeably a curling drive from 25 yards from Rory Reilly which he dived at full stretch to tip over the bar in the 2nd half, a fierce drive from Caleb Keating in the first half produced a reaction stop JD again another drive from Simon Turkington stung his hands.
Holywood had their chances too, hitting the post and the bar, while Peter showed a very confident and competent display between the post throughout the game.
The ever expressive Caolan Cunningham was again at his best, fantastically quick over the first 10 meters got him on the right side of the defenders on many occasions, and pulled the ball back several times just to see chances from Caleb and Donal go past the post. Paul Doherty, Jonny Wilson and Leo McGowan were excellent at the back, keeping the impressive Lumi with long range efforts.
The game was at stalemate when Rory played a great pass through to Caolan who again out-paced the Holywood defender and as he dashed into the box and touched the ball past the oncoming keeper he was cut down, PENALTY, and surely a red card for the keeper due to the rashness of the challenge and it being a clear goal scoring opportunity and last man………but no, the ref who made strange decisions all day didn’t even show a yellow card!! Up stepped Michael Lawson who as usual cooly stroked the penalty into the corner of the net, 1:0 to the colts.
A few more tasty challenges from both teams came in the 2nd half, and agin some very strand decisions from the ref, the Colts had 3 players taken off for treatment as Dudu Holywood yet the ref never had any control, and with 2minutes left on the clock the ref decided he’d had enough and blow the game up!!
The result stand, 1:0 to Carryduff and maintain their unbeaten league campaign moving them up to 2nd with two games in hand over league leaders.
Man of The Match: Peter Duncan
Goal scorer: Michael Lawson.