Hope springs eternal!!!!!
Summary of the article below (from the Bray website) -
Bray 1-4 UCD
Goals from Patrick McWalter, Hugh Davey, Pat Sullivan and Robbie Martin. Bray got a late consolation. We were much better and passed them off the park. New signing - David Sullivan at full-back (not the best position for a new signing, but anyway) - he's signed from Sunderland.
Bray seem to have had a full-strength squad out - we had Cawley on the bench for the first hour, no Tony Mac and had Ben Savage, Paul Doolin, Barry Andrews and Tommy Dunne on at the end!
I think we lined out as follows (team is correct, just sorting out positions) -
Jennings
D Sullivan McNally Donnelly McAuley
P Sullivan J Martin O'Donnell Davey
R Martin McWalter
With Waterford getting hammered, we could well get a result down there to kick-start our season.
Here's hoping anyway... (where's the hoping smiley?!)
What’s in a name? UCD have this right full named Sullivan. Not Patrick Sullivan, he’s the regular right full. This is David Sullivan just arrived from Sunderland, who played the first eighty minutes at the Carlisle until so incapacitated by cramp that he had to be replaced. By Sullivan. Patrick, that is. Well, he was actually substituted by Paul Doolin but you can’t really see the manager making a late career change to the rigours of full back, can you? So the boss waves Sullivan - the surviving Sullivan that is - back into his regular right back spot from midfield. Why was Patrick Sullivan playing midfield in the first place? To give David Sullivan a chance, of course. You’d need more than a coaching certificate to sort this lot out. But there’s more.
UCD, as befits a university club, play a lot of these name games. There’s John Martin, not to be confused with Robert Martin or the alternatively spelt Martyn who’s no longer with the club. Throw in McAuley and McNally for good measure. Then there’s Donnelly, O’Donnell and McDonnell. The latter wasn’t playing tonight. “For this relief much thanks,” as my old friend Bill Shakespeare once wrote. If the Bard’s feeling the strain what chance does your humble correspondent have?
The Bray Wanderers players seemed equally bemused. The visitors started at a much higher tempo, played all of the decent passing football on view and went in at half time with a comfortable two-nil lead. What was billed as a friendly was actually a practice match and the contest was effectively over shortly after the restart as multiple substitutions destroyed the pattern of play. I suppose there must be an advantage for coaches in this policy but it sometimes seems a dubious way of learning anything about players, as well as a sure way to ruin the spectacle. UCD ran out easy winners by four goals to one, demonstrating an alarming chasm in standard between the foot of the Premier division and the top of the First.
The Students had gone ahead as early as the third minute when O’Donnell took advantage of naïve home defending to slip a right wing corner back to the unmarked David Sullivan (remember him?). Sullivan’s cross was headed wide of O’Connor by the promising McWalter. The second goal after twenty one minutes was also sourced from the right and an elegant step over filleted the Seagulls central defence leaving Davey clear on the left. He forced the ball past the onrushing O’Connor and into the net despite the goal line efforts of Gormley.
Patrick Sullivan got the third on the hour with a neatly taken effort past the keeper’s left hand that O’Connor might, nevertheless, have saved. Rushe had taken over the duties of custodian by the time the visitors notched their last goal with a quarter of an hour remaining. Darragh Ryan’s cross from the left enabled the unmarked Griffin to register a close range header.
Bray’s consolation was scored by Kieran O’Brien who beat Andrews to the ball and prodded it past him. The UCD reserve keeper had replaced Austin O’Neill after just over an hour. O’Neill, on a month’s trial from Dublin City, had little enough opportunity to catch the eye in a match that got curiouser and curiouser when referee Richie Winter showed yellow cards to Fox and Patrick Sullivan. Since this was not a competitive match what is the point of such histrionics? Leaving the last word to old Bill, were they – and the match too – “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?”
Brian de Salvo
Bray Wanderers: 1 Chris O’Connor; 8 Paul O’Reilly, 4 Jody Lynch (capt), 5 Wesley Charles. 3 Maurice Farrell; 7 Michael Lawless, 2 Colm Tresson, 6 Eddie Gormley, 11 Paul Forsyth; 9 Eamon Zayed, 10 Stephen Fox
Subs: 12 Kieran O’Brien (for Lawless 56), 13 David Gough (for Tresson 72), 14 Colm James (for Forsyth 75), 15 Ciaran Ryan (for Farrell 56), 16 David Smullen (for Gormley 57), 17 John Flood (for Zayed 75) 23 Keith Rushe (for O’Connor 76)
UCD: 1 Austin O’Neill; 2 David Sullivan, 4 Alan McNally, 5 Niall Donnelly, 3 Robert McAuley; 8 Patrick Sullivan, 6 John Martin, 7 Michael O’Donnell, 11 Hugh Davey; 9 Robert Martin, 10 Patrick McWalter
Subs: 12 Alan Cawley (for McWalter 61), 13 Ben Savage (for McAuley 63), 14 Robert Griffin (for Martin R H/T), 15 Darragh Ryan (Davey 50), 16 Barry Andrews (for O’Neill 62), 17 Paul Doolin (for Sullivan D 80), 18 Thomas Dunne (for Martin J 69)
Referee: Richie Winter
Re: Hope springs eternal!!!!!
Quote:
Originally posted by pineapple stu
Patrick McWalter, Ben Savage, Tommy Dunne
Who are they then?
Was that a full strength Bray team? If so, the first division doesn't seem to be up to much (might have a shot at promotion next season!).
