Match Report - Kilbarry Rangers 4-3 Waterford Crystal

It was a lovely sunny day in the RSC and we went 1-0 up when some great play ended with Ben Hogan latching on and applying a great finish into the bottom corner to give us the lead.

The lead was short lived however and we got caught out from sleeping from kick off to allow Crystal to equalise nearly instantly.

And Crystal took the lead near half time, good play down the right and a good ball into the box was met with a great header to put us 2-1 down going into the break.

Some home truths were spoken at half time and everyone acknowledged it needed to be better. Daniel Mihalache came off the bench and made a massive impact instantly. And it would be Danny who’d get us level, he got played a ball on the edge of the box and he controlled it well and hit a powerful shot which gave the keeper no chance. 2-2.

And we would retake the lead shortly after, with our tails up great play down the left from Jamie Robinson led to him putting a ball across goal and on the end of it was another substitute Conor Houlihan who met in perfectly for a 3-2 lead.

A few minutes later however Waterford Crystal would equalise from a free kick to make it 3-3 and it would’ve been easy to let the heads drop there.

However one last twist to the tale would come, again Jamie Robinson made a great run down the left and his effort across goal was parried out to that man again Conor Houlihan to tap in and make it 4-3, no one deserved that more than Houly!

We controlled the game well from that point till the end and saw the game out for a massive 3 points! That’s 3 wins from 4 now and it keeps us joint top of the table. A great start to the season. This was a tough game against a very good team, and even though we struggled at times to play our game the reaction at half time was fantastic and the lads fought so hard to get that crucial win!

Our next game is away to Ferrybank Friday September 10th at 7pm.