North End v Longford Town (LSC)
North End completed a very comfortable 5-1 win in the Leinster Senior Cup in Ferrycarrig tonight against what looked like a fully underage Longford side. North End started with Lee, Craig, Gary, Robin, Dale, Ciaran, Spot, Alan, Niall, Adam and with Kyle Dempsey up front. Longford started relatively well and had an early shot on six minutes but it sailed over Lee Walker’s goal. However, with Longford playing a high line defensively they were very vulnerable to any pass which went behind their defence. This was particularly the case with the distribution by an excellent Spot Murphy sitting in front of his back four. On nine minutes, NE should have scored when Adam Beary was sent free down the right but Kyle Dempsey could only steer his low cross wide of the Longford post. NE’s Ciaran Carthy then had a chance to lob the Longford keeper but the attempt just drifted wide of the Longford goal-post. Just before the half-hour, Dale Flynn of NE could only side-foot a good cross over the Longford bar at the far post. NE’s first goal followed just after the half-hour when Adam Beary profited from an error in the Longford defence to round the away keeper and score comfortably. A rare Longford attack then resulted in a floated cross hitting the NE crossbar with Lee Walker back-pedalling but the ball stayed out. With seven minutes to go in the half, NE were awarded a peno following a late challenge on Dale Flynn and Spot Murphy easily converted to make it 2-0. NE continued to dominate the first half and got their third when Alan Rhodes smacked home Adam Beary’s low cross. It was 4-0 just before the break when Niall Connolly converted a headed flick-on by Kyle Dempsey. 4-0 to NE at half-time with Longford’s heads having dropped as the goals flowed for NE.
