South Antrim 7-3 Wallace High (J.Brown, A.Glass, P.Maguire x3, C.Henry x2)
Last Wednesday night saw South Antrim 1sts take on Wallace High School in the annual Ivan Sloan memorial cup. This year’s match provided South with the opportunity to retain the title for the first time, following last year’s victory.
As the game began South looked to establish an early dominance, however the Wallace team, blessed with an abundance of pace in the midfield, were able to disrupt much of South’s early possession and prevent them from playing the hockey which won them the league title last season. Despite this, the Premier league side opened the scoring towards the end of the first quarter of play with James Brown slotting a neat drag flick, which was in no way an attempted pass to the back post to Paul Maguire, into the bottom corner of the goal.
The second quarter saw a rejuvenated Wallace side take advantage of South Antrim mistakes, scoring two goals in quick succession, including a well-placed short corner routine. Despite this disappointment, South were able to find their feet in the game once more and, following some good build up play from Adam Marshall and Ward Phillips, Adam Glass levelled the scores with a deflected effort past the onrushing Wallace ‘keeper.
With the match finely balanced at 2-2, the second half began with South Antrim looking to build on a mixed first half performance and re-establish their earlier lead. However, once again Wallace were able to show why they are considered one of the top school boy teams in the country, taking the lead early on with a well-timed finish from close range. As it turned out, this was just the shock South needed to spring them back to life. After falling behind in the match South finally began to play the quality, fast-flowing hockey which the team have been playing for the past year. With Mark Gray, Nathan Gamble and Chris Henry beginning to cause havoc down the right hand side, a goal seemed inventible. Sure enough a quick fire double for Paul Maguire saw South regain the lead at the close of the 3rd quarter.
The final quarter of the match was dominated by an invigorated South Antrim side. Paul Maguire completed his hat trick in style with a precise near post finish following a trademark storming run. The match was then put to bed late on with a Chris Henry double, firstly firing home a rebound from an Adam Glass short corner, followed by a tap in from less than a foot, albeit from a 50 yard dribble to get there. With the match seemingly all but over there was still time for Mark Gray to give the crowd further entertainment. The South Antrim right back, despite his limited attacking ability, managed to bundle his way into the opposition area and found himself 1 v 1 with the Wallace keeper. With most of the crowd turning away, expecting to hear the crash of the ball against the backboard, Gray showed the truth behind the old cliché ‘nothing is guaranteed in sport’ as he managed to trip over his own feet and fall over, just in time to watch the ball trickle well wide of goal.
Despite this missed opportunity South were able to hold on to the final whistle with the score at 7-3 and win the tie for the second year running. The exciting score line and good spirits in which the game was played were a fitting tribute to Ivan. Wallace’s Matthew Nelson was rightly awarded Man of the Match after a fantastic display in the school’s midfield. Kind words were said by South’s chairman Jonny Taylor in memory of Ivan after the game.