Match Report - Piltown 2-2 Kilbarry Rangers

For the first 25 minutes of the game we were quite comfortable despite struggling to break Piltown down. But the nudged ahead and a good finish across Kieran’s goal left him no chance and gave Piltown the lead.

But there was no need to be disheartened as it was still early in the game and we were having a lot of the ball, but from here we started to make poor decisions and panic on the ball which is uncharacteristic for this side.

Then Piltown made it 2-0, with a terrific free kick, no keeper would have saved it but it compounded our misery.

At half time it looked like an uphill battle was on our hands, and it was a simple question of did the squad have the bottle to go out and change the game…. And they did!

Only 3 minutes into the second half great play allowed Conor Hennessy to work some magic and draw a foul in the box and a penalty was given, Conor stepped up himself and dispatched it with ease to get us back in it.

It was that man again central to more good play, he got the ball on the left and played a perfect diagonal ball to Jamie Robinson, and JR cool as you like cut in past the defender and made it 2-2 and all of a sudden we looked like a different team.

From here we had much dominance and many chances, best of which fell when Sam Hogan made a good run down the right wing and put in an amazingly inviting ball but the onrushing group of attackers just missed the crucial touch needed.

Despite all these chances we nearly lost on a counter attack only for Kieran Houlihan to perform some magic and make a double save.

So it’s disappointing to drop points but it’s early in the season so no need to panic, main positives are the fantastic character shown to get back in it and we should have got 3 points with the chances we had but lessons need to be learned to stop giving ourselves to much to do. Next up is St Paul’s next Saturday at 2pm in the RSC in a top of the table clash.