Saintfield United 2nds got back to league action this weekend with a trip to the Boucher road to face Willowbank 2nds.
The trip there was a sign of things to come as some strange concert with scantily clad females was being held at the other end of the Boucher road, which meant a significant delay on the arrival time of most of the players! After that debacle and a quick warm up it was down to football, although for the opening 20 minutes it seemed like most of the team had went to the concert!
A sloppy mistake led to the first Willowbank goal as a dummy by CB Zach Doyle (which he did after a call from their CF to leave it) rolled straight to their striker and he ran in and slotted it home.
10 minutes later it was 2-0 to the home team.
This time a missed ball in the middle of the pitch was poked forward and much to the Saints surprise it beat all of their defence and found the Willowbank winger running through on goal. Again he made no mistake.
After 20 minutes the Saints finally showed up and a few half chances by Morrow and Bookless went begging. But they were handed a life line in the 40th minute when the Willowbank CB got in a disagreement with the ref and saw red!
Saints stepped it up in the 2nd half and finally got one back in the 80th minute, courtesy of a penalty from Tony Liken.
5 minutes later and the Saints had another penalty, well they thought they did as Morrow was taken down by the goalkeeper as he went to round him. The ref pointed to the spot and awarded the penalty, however after an exchange with a Saints player (in which the player said it wasn’t a penalty) the ref changed the call and it was a dropped ball!
That change of direction seemed to sap the remaining fight out of the Saints and the game faded out with Willowbank hanging on and claiming the 3 points with a 2-1 win.