There was a lot being asked of this team this Sunday :
– It was a sweltering day playing away to a Broadford team that had given us a handy beating the last time we played.
– It was own teams first league 9 a side game
– We only had a single sub

When Park conceded the first goal after less than a minute, many teams could have let their heads drop but not this team. As we have seen many times in the past, there is a resilience about this team, they never give up. To a man, they all dug deep and fought for every ball and covered every blade of grass and it paid off with the possession moving in Parks direction.

With Charlie Delaney patrolling the midfield and Callum Barrett patrolling the defence, Park won possession of the ball and were beginning to impose themselves pushing the oppo back into their defence. Pressure from Jamie Rossi and Morgan McGrail led to winning the ball in the attacking areas but the Broadford defence was strong with a particularly good goalkeeper keeping out a number of shots. Parity was eventually restored after 20 minutes of the game played from a corner. Mathew Whelan was pinging in great corners all day and this one fell to Morgan McGrail to head in.

4 minutes later after some real pressure from the midfield, in particular Luke Mathews and Mathew Whelan, Park took the lead, also another corner. This time the ball fell to Ryan Maher who slotted the ball away nicely.

The second half started as the first finished, despite playing against the wind, Park and Broadford largely fought an even battle with plenty of nervous moments. Eventually, with just over 20 minutes left to play, Broadford got an equalizer after a mix up in the Park Celtic defence led to a well taken shot. Yet again Park doubled down and ensured that they won every ball and played the balls to the wings and the forwards. Eventually, with 9 minutes left to play, Ryan Maher played a great through ball to Alex Sheehy who used his pace to get away from the defence and lift the ball over the keeper’s leg into the bottom corner to make it 3 – 2 to Park.

It was now Broadfords turn to apply pressure to try to get an equalizer but the Park defence gave no quarter with Harry Malone and Ben McGlinchy covering everything and smartly keeping the ball where we wanted it.

No more goals were scored and Park got the victory that they deserved for all their hard work and effort.

 

The coaches were really proud of how this team worked so hard and applied so much of the areas that had been practiced in the previous weeks.