Men’s thirds scrape through

A new look men’s’ thirds side hosted South Antrim thirds last Friday night at Comber Leisure Centre. With an experienced spine of the team, youth was on show elsewhere down both flanks with Hunter, Brown, Proctor, Vincent and Linter all impressive. North Down started the match in confident mood controlling the game with lots of possession. The visitors rarely threatened the solid home defence but despite all the possession it was goalless at half time with that final pass missing from the thirds game.

Patience was the half time message but the game restarted in the same vein with no final end product. North Down caused the South Antrim defence lots of problems utilising the pace of Moore but against the run of play the visitors were awarded a short corner and converted well.

One down with 15 minutes to go was not in the script and nothing but 3 points would appease the hosts. It took this goal at the wrong end to kick start the thirds and many chances finally ended in the conversion of a short corner when Ben Willis finished a rebound off Sam Pyper’s initial strike.

Minutes later a crashed ball into the danger area was cutely deflected by Johnny Proctor and the ball pinged off the underside of the crossbar, and although not awarded immediately, Moore was there to tap the ball over the line. The never give up spirit of the thirds captained by Andy Walls came to the fore again in this game and they played out the closing minutes for a good win.