Friday night’s alright for Lisnagarvey

The merits of playing a Premier League game on a Friday evening are yet to be explained but Garvey knew they had to win this match to stay in the hunt for the title.

The match turned out to be a scrappy affair throughout with Garvey,s better skills coming out on top in the end. However, playing without the class of Timmy Cockram who is getting married shortly in South Africa, Garvey conceded a penalty corner to an active Mossley in the fourth minute but the weak shot was easily blocked.

At the other end Andy Forrest went closed to opening the scoring but his effort was deflected for a long corner in the seventh minute.

Garvey were well in control of the mid field in the opening 15 minutes and were rewarded with a penalty corner in the 16th minute after Mark Raphael was fouled in the act of shooting. Steven Arbuthnot, standing in for Cockram, placed his drag flick into the top left hand corner of the net giving Mossley keeper, Ben McMillan no chance of making a save.

Richard Arneill had a great run down the right wing in the 20th minute but his cross did not find a Garvey stick and a minute later a Mark Raphael shot was saved by McMillan as was a rare Brian Waring effort just two minutes later.

The Garvey pressure told in the 27th minute when Stuart McNiece worked his way into the Mossley circle before his shot cannoned off the home defender into the net for an own goal which took Garvey into a comfortable 2-0 lead.

With Daniel Buser driving his team on from midfield, Garvey should have increased their advantage but they were short of creativity with the final pass and when Andy Forrets shot over the cross bar in the final minute of the first half Garvey still led by two clear goals and had little to fear from a Mossley side which had even less chance of producing a goal.

Garvey piled on the pressure even more as the second half got under way and Mark Raphael saw his good shot saved by the more than useful Ben McMillan in the Mossley goal but he could do nothing about Garvey’s third goal in ther 39th minute.

Andy Forrest provided the rocket reverse stick cross and Philip Stirling deflected the ball into the top right hand corner of the net while nobody in the Mossley defence had a chance to move.

McMillan made two more fine saves from Steven Arbuthnot and Andy Forrest in the 42nd and 43rd minutes and Greg Thompson had only the goalkeeper to beat in the 44th minute but ‘fluffed ‘ the chance as the Mossley rearguard was beginning to crack under the constant barrage of Garvey attacks.

The 46th minute took the score line to 4-0 for Garvey when after a number of reaction saves from McMillan, Johnny Quigley was on hand to slap the ball into the Mossley net for goal number four.

The home side did have a chance to reduce the arrears in the 50th minute but again they totally wasted their second penalty corner and Garvey returned to the attack with a great dribble by captain Jonny Bell only being ended by the Mossley keeper at the edge of his circle.

A second Garvey set pieced in the 62nd minute was taken by Greg Thompson but his effort went sailing past the right hand upright but in the 67th minute, Garvey,s third penalty corner striker of the evening ‘did the trick’; James Lorimer stepped up and placed a perfect drag flick past McMillan to score against his old club and the first for his new.

Mossley had a third penalty corner in the 68th minute but the improved effort was well blocked by the almost redundant John Tormey in the Garvey goal and Philip Stirling completed the night’s scoring with Garvey,s sixth in the final seconds of the match, beating McMillan with a well placed shot just inside the left hand corner of the net.

This was far from a classic Premier match but in the end Garvey were much too good for the bottom of the table Mossley and took away the vital three league points from a game which did not end until 9.45pm.