Massive relief at the final whistle in Ferrycarrig tonight as Wexford finally managed to secure their first league win and, in a close game, probably deserved it on the balance of play . With Craig Wall and Adam Hanlon back in the frame, Wexford looked to have a stronger panel than for a number of matches. Damian Locke started with Graham, Craig McCabe, Owen, Ross, Mark, Ricky, Duxey, Craig Wall, Crokey and with Liam and Lee up front. Shels had a dangerous free after two minutes, but whacked it into the wall. The decisive goal came as early as the fourth minute, when Liam Donnelly, playing by far his best game for Wexford, rolled his full-back marker and his low cross was tucked into the corner from about ten yards out by Thomas Croke. Having scored so few goals this season, Wexford now had something to hold onto, and battled as hard as they could for the remainder of the game. On ten minutes Aaron Ashe of Shels got a yellow for a retaliatory kick on Ricky Fox. On 15 minutes, Graham Doyle in the Wexford goal was lucky to get away with a miskick outside his own penalty area. Shels then applied some pressure, but the Wexford defence, with English missing for Shels, were generally able to cope. Just after the half hour, Wexford's Lee Duffy had a shot blocked for a corner. With seven to go in the half, Duxey Dunne limped off and was replaced by Conor Sutton of Wexford. In the first minute of injury time, Mark Slater played a nice one-two with Donnelly but prodded his shot wide with only Delaney to beat in the Shels goal. 1-0 to Wexford at half-time after a pretty even first half.
Second half was another even affair with Wexford understandably trying to take all the pace out of the game. There were a couple of corners apiece early on in the half before, on 16 minutes, Liam Donnelly had a near-post flick just wide after good work by Lee Duffy out wide. Donnelly then had a shout for a peno as the ball hit the defender's hand inside the Shels box, but I thought it would have been harsh myself. On 28 minutes, Duffy had a decent effort which went a yard wide and Mark Slater picked up a yellow for a tackle. This was followed by two sets of yellow cards for players squaring up to each other. With ten to go, Shels came closest to equalising when a second header from a throw-in hit the top of Wexford's crossbar and over. Late subs for Wexford were Adam Hanlon and Danny Doyle and Conor Sutton came close to getting a second when his deflected volley was just pushed away by Delaney in the Shels goal. Final whistle then blew with Wexford 1-0 winners and they should be able to push on from this as the team is improving match by match. Best for Wexford were Liam Donnelly, Craig Wall and Mark Slater but the whole team put in a massive effort to get some much-needed confidence back into the team. Big crowd of youngsters from our new partnership club, Vale Wanderers of Leighlinbridge, Co. Carlow probably pushed the attendance to about 250.
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