{"id":10119,"date":"2019-02-25T20:15:40","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T20:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/northdownhc.co.uk\/?p=10119"},"modified":"2019-02-25T20:15:40","modified_gmt":"2019-02-25T20:15:40","slug":"shields-stars-in-important-league-win-for-fifths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/25\/shields-stars-in-important-league-win-for-fifths\/","title":{"rendered":"Shields stars in important league win for fifths"},"content":{"rendered":"

North Down fifths entertained Instonians fourths last Saturday in Comber in what is likely to prove the definitive game for promotion from Junior 5.\u00a0 First and second in the table heading into the weekend, both teams needed a win to keep the promotion fate in their own hands.<\/p>\n

North Down started the livelier of the teams and slick passing and direct runs into the Inst 25 resulted in an early series of short corners.\u00a0Chris Murray worked well down the right side of midfield interconnecting well with\u00a0Ryan Millar who had a superb game in attacking centre mid. The rotation of the forward line meant the home attack stayed fresh and were eager to get in at goal at every opportunity.
\nThe main incident of the first half came when\u00a0Peter Shields\u00a0got into a clear shooting position from a short corner only to be assaulted from the back by an Inst defender.\u00a0 Shields still managed to keep his balance and pushed firmly into the Inst net.\u00a0 As both teams were lining up for the restart, the Inst umpire rather unbelievably disallowed the goal for being too high being the first shot from a short corner but there was no deliberation with the other umpire. The players did well not to let their frustration spill over into the game and it remained 0-0 at half time.<\/p>\n

After the break North Down continued where they left off.\u00a0James Stewart and Adam Skelly in midfield worked tirelessly on the left and Davy Moreland\u00a0 showing his experience winning free after free by drawing almost every Inst player into fouling him.<\/p>\n

Inst did break on the odd occasion, however the home defence, marshalled superbly by\u00a0Curtis Hastings\u00a0and\u00a0Gavin Rogers,\u00a0were never in any real trouble with\u00a0Ryan McKee\u00a0in nets barely touching the ball in the second half.\u00a0 The breakthrough finally came after sharp passing in midfield from Shields found Nathan Grimshaw\u00a0who worked into the Inst circle and scored with a clinical finish.\u00a0 More chances came and went with\u00a0Matt Murray\u00a0coming close on a few occasions from short corners, almost breaking the post with one effort.<\/p>\n

Finally North Down got the cushion they deserved with a wonder goal! A tenacious run from Greg Bell\u00a0caught a ball that was destined to go over the back line.\u00a0 He managed to control it then squared the ball perfectly for the diving\u00a0Ben Bond who finished with aplomb.\u00a0 The match then petered out as North Down were masterful in control and Inst had little to offer, their race was run.\u00a0 Feature of North Down\u2019s real team display was an absolute beast of a performance from veteran Peter Shields, pushing North Down forward and appearing everywhere when needed forward and back.\u00a0 This result means that the promotion fate is firmly in the fifths own control.<\/p>\n

PMB Man of the Match: Peter Shields.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

North Down fifths entertained Instonians fourths last Saturday in Comber in what is likely to prove the definitive game for promotion from Junior 5.\u00a0 First and second in the table heading into the weekend, both teams needed a win to keep the promotion fate in their own hands. North Down started the livelier of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-match-reports","category-mens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10121,"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10119\/revisions\/10121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}