Town Reserves battle their way into round three

Banbridge Town Reserves 2

HAVING watched his young Town Reserve side being given a difficult time in the first Mid-Ulster Division Three league games against Locomotive Lisburn and Craigavon City manager Ronnie Haughey was relishing Saturday’s second round Marshall Cup trip to face Intermediate B side Richhill for a game in which he knew football would be the winner.

And that certainly proved to be the case as the Town side, with an average age of 18, won their way into the third round of the competition with a well deserved 2-1 victory.

“At the lower levels of the Mid-Ulster League the physical aspect of the game is more in play than the technical side and my lads often don’t get the protection they deserve from referees”, said Haughey.

“Our game is all about getting the ball down on the deck and playing the game as he should be and when I saw we were drawn against Richhill in the Marshall Cup I was confident that a game against a team from a higher level would be right up our street.”

From the outset of the game the Town had Richhill on the back foot but despite dominating the early proceedings the home side were the team that got the breakthrough when they benefited from a bit of pinball in the Reserve’s defence to take the lead.

However, to the credit of Banbridge they quickly regrouped and within five minutes they were level when centre-forward Adam McBurney’s pressure on the Richhill centre-half resulted in him scoring an own goal to leave the sides level at the break.

Buoyed by their first half performance the Reserves took the game to their more senior opponents on the restart and went on to produce a solid display throughout every department in the team.

Every member of the squad contributed to Saturday’s victory with all three substitutes being called into action in the second half, one of whom, Kelin Doyle, scored a superb goal when he cut in from the left flank before dispatching a right foot shot into the top corner of net.

Doyle, who missed the Reserves two opening league fixtures through injury, came off the bench for what turned out to be a match-winning 20-minute period before his troublesome ankle forced him to retire from the game.

Thankfully however, his team-mates, which by this stage included three 16-year-olds from the ranks of the Town juniors in the shape of Jamie Edgar, Scott Martin and Scott Lindsay, displayed enough resolve in the face of any Richhill pressure to keep their opponents at bay.

BANBRIDGE TOWN RESERVES: Kieran Maguire, James Haughey, Scott Martin, Barry Nelson, Aaron Cobb, Shane Nelson, Aaron Nelson, Michael Matier, Adam McBurney, Matty McConnell, Nathan Donnelly. Subs: Kelin Doyle, Stuart Jordon, Scott Lindsay, Jamie Edgar.