Date: 18-Oct-08
Competition: Fraser Trophy (Rd 2)
Scorers: Davy McKean (3), Graham Shanks, John Hawkins
Man of the Match: Yusef Patel
Match Report:
Hamilton Harvest travelled in to Glasgow on Saturday to take on Trinity Possil in the 2^nd round of the Fraser trophy. With only 11 players available Harvest lined up in a 3-5-2 formation with Dave Lowe in goals, left to right in defence was Hawky, Shug & Omar, left to right in midfield was Aiky, Paul, Davy, Yusef & Ally and up front was Alex and Shanksy.
Harvest found themselves 2-0 down within the first 15 minutes, both goals coming from headers after good work down the wings by the trinity midfielders. Harvest then reverted back to their usual 4-4-2 formation with Yusef and Aiky dropping back to left and right back respectively and Hawky moving to left midfield. This change in formation resulted in more possession for Harvest and they pulled a goal back when Ally picked up the ball on the right, played it in to Davy’s feet, Davy turned and let fly from 25 yards and the ball flew past the keeper in to the top right hand corner. Harvest were now enjoying most of the possession and were only denied an equalizer by the crossbar. No further action saw Harvest go in 2-1 down at half time.
Into the 2^nd half and it was Trinity who scored a 3^rd goal, a long ball over the Harvest defence dropped behind Shug to the feet of the Trinity midfielder who tucked his shot in to the bottom corner. Despite this setback Harvest kept pushing forward and pulled a goal back when a ball in to the box was only partially cleared by the defender and Hawky was on hand to thrash a left foot volley past the keeper in to the net (great goal Hawky, it must have been those boots you borrowed from Paul). Harvest were now in the ascendancy and scored an equalizer when Paul picked up the ball in midfield and played a great through ball to Shanksy who had the pace to beat the defender and place his hot under the on rushing keeper in to the net. Harvest then took the lead through Davy McKean, the ball was played in to Davy’s feet from the right, Davy turned got the ball out of his feet and unleashed a powerful left foot shot from the edge of the 18 yard box in to the bottom left hand corner. Despite Harvest scoring the last 3 goals Trinity were still pushing forward and the game took another twist when Trinity scored an equalizer, a corner on the Harvest right was floated to the back post and the unmarked Trinity player was on hand to bullet his header past Dave Lowe in to the net. Harvest regained the lead 10 minutes from time when a throw in was played to Alex in the Trinity penalty area, he hooked the ball over his head to the back post to Davy who beat the defender in the air and headed past the keeper to complete his hat-trick and make the score 5-4. The scoring was not finished there and it was Trinity who nicked an equalizer with only 4 minutes to go, a hopeful shot from the edge of the box deflected of Davy McKean and looped over Dave Lowe in to the far right corner of the net. The final whistle blew and a topsy turvy game ended 5-5.
It was straight to penalties and Trinity opted to take the first penalty, 1 penalty from each team was saved by the goal keepers, the Trinity keeper guessing right and saving Davy McKean’s penalty and Dave Lowe saving down to his left to deny the Trinity player. Shanksy, Alex, Omar & Paul all scored their respective penalties as did the remaining penalty takers for Trinity. With the penalty count at 4-4 it was in to sudden death, Trinity scored their first sudden death penalty and Hawky replied for Harvest to make it 5-5, Trinity then scored another and Yusef again replied for Harvest to make it 6-6, Trinity stepped up again but this time their player blasted the ball over the crossbar. If Harvest scored the next penalty they would win the tie and progress in the competition. Up stepped Shug, he placed the ball on the spot, took a few steps back, started his run up and dispatched his penalty low to the keepers right and in to the bottom corner of the net to win the game for Harvest.
Well done today guys, despite being down to the bare bones we all dug in and despite the cheap goals we gave away I think we deserved to win the game. Well done to Davy McKean who scored a hat-trick and to Yusef Patel who deservedly won the man of the match award after making more than a few last ditch challenges to prevent further damage to the Harvest goal. Let’s take the positives from this game in to our next league game and continue to build on our good start to the season.