Seniors beat St. Marys for 1st MSL Premier Win

With a second home tie in successive weekends, Bandon with confidence high from last week’s excellent performance they took their first Munster Senior League Premier Division points with an impressive win over city side St. Mary’s.

In perfect underfoot conditions the game kicked off with both sides eager to press the other. It took a while for Bandon to get composure on the ball with a frenetic pace being set by both teams. The first chance of the game came on 7 minutes to St. Mary’s midfielder Gordon Banks who forced an excellent acrobatic save from Bandon goalkeeper Pat Prendergast who stretched to touch the ball around the post for a corner. The subsequent clearance from the corner saw Bandon go on the attack through Conor O’Driscoll whose run down the right won Bandon the corner, from which they almost opened the scoring as Ger Harrington’s header was deflected out off the upright. St. Mary’s and in particular Anthony O’Callaghan who put in a very good performance on the day were content enough to mop up any ball coming through and respond by by-passing the midfield with long balls in an effort to put Bandon under pressure. Bandon’s back line though was solid throughout with Michael Bradfield in leading the way, never putting a foot wrong with a Man of the Match like performance.

The breakthrough came in the 15th minute, when a ball whipped in from the right by Bandon danger man O’Driscoll again found the head of Harrington at the back post sending the ball back across the box to Richie Holland whose deft touch controlled the ball laying it off to the oncoming O’Driscoll who made no mistake and drilled it past Coakley for Bandon to take the lead.

After the goal, St. Mary’s through the efforts of Wayne McBride and Barry Triggs started to push on with a greater sense of urgency. The Bandon defence had to keep their concentration if they were to hold onto the lead. Before long Bandon reasserted themselves with chances dropping to Harrington, Brendan Cullen and Sean Holland who had a long range vicious shot skim off the top of the crossbar.

The second half began and saw St. Mary’s try to pick up the pace, coming through the midfield in numbers making it more difficult for Bandon to get on the ball and play their passing game. However, Bandon’s fitness was evident with them taking control for the most of the remainder of the game.  In an effort to apply pressure and assert themselves, St. Mary’s kept a high line, however this only allowed Bandon the space to break with speed on several occasions. With some excellent movement on the ball and clever interplay Holland, O’Driscoll, Dunlea and Cullen they nearly added a further two goals.

On the 85^th minute, St. Mary’s had a goal disallowed when a corner ball into the box saw goalie Prendergast comfortably take the ball under control only to have an oncoming St. Mary’s player infringe on the keeper, knocking the ball out of his hands and into the goal. The referee didn’t allow the goal to stand awarding instead a free kick to Bandon. With 5 minutes plus time added on, Bandon made two substitutions which saw O’Sullivan and O’Donoghue come on for O’Driscoll and Dunlea helping Bandon to see the game out much to the delight of the home crowd.

After the match, a jubilant Bandon manager Tadhg O’Neill spoke about the game. ‘We had deserved points from our previous league games. The team have been and were again today were outstanding. The squad’s excellent hard work got them a deserved 3 points. It shows the great spirit that’s in Bandon. We’ll take this result and drive on from here’ O’Neill said.

Team:

Pat Prendergast, Sean Holland, Michael Bradfield, Benny Lynch, Jerry Lynch, Steve Keohane, Ger Harrington, Audie Dunlea, Brendan Cullen, Richie Holland, Conor O’Driscoll.

Subs used: Martin O’Sullivan, John O’Donovan

Match Report submitted by Mark Tracey