February 2, 2010

Glenavon 1-0 Newry City (Dickson 65)

Filed under: Match Report,Premiership — admin @ 7:47 pm

A 65th minute goal by skipper Hugh Dickson finally saw Glenavon win a league game for the first time in 12 attempts. The win takes the Lurgan Blues up into 7th place ahead of Portadown.

Hugh Dickson gets congratulated after scoring what proved to be the winner. Photo by Stephen Greenaway.

Marty’s View (Audio)

Marty Quinn made four changes to the side that lost to Cliftonville and the totally re-jigged midfield quartet of Paul Carvill, Barry Johnston, Ryan Harpur and Eamon Murray helped Glenavon produce some of the best football we have seen from the team this season. Harpur deservedly won the Man of the Match award for a masterful footballing display in the central midfield role where his influence on the game was emphatic and he was unlucky not to cap his performance with a goal, hitting the woodwork twice in the second half.

James Costello had an excellent game up front and went close to scoring with this effort. Photo by Stephen Greenaway

Newry began well but in the 9th minute Glenavon’s James Costello, recalled to the starting lineup in place of Tony Grant, fired a low shot across goal from Molloy’s flick on. Costello almost returned the favour in the 18th minute when he sent over a low cross that just went behind his unmarked strike partner. City keeper Neil Gallagher pulled off a good save to deny Costello two minutes later when he fired from the corner of the box after Murray dinked the ball over the defence.

Ruairi Devlin’s low cross to the near post in the 22nd minute looked to be heading for the arms of Andrew Plummer but Andy Graham nipped in ahead of him and saw his flick across goal just miss the far post.

Jay Magee hooked a volley goalwards from Paul Carvill’s 26th minute corner and Gallagher just stretched enough to turn it round the post. The big defender then almost got his head on the resulting corner but the ball did drop to Murray and Newry were fortunate that Ross Black was in just the right place to deflect his shot over the bar with his head.

Two minutes from the interval it looked as though Costello would score as he controlled Dickson’s lobbed pass on the edge of the box and beat the keeper only for ex-Glenavon player Kevin Keegan to make a last-ditch clearance on the line.

Man of the Match Ryan Harpur weaves his way through the opposition. Photo by Stephen Greenaway

In the first minute of the second half Ryan Harpur held off a challenge and fired a low shot from 25 yards that crashed back off the base of Gallagher’s post with the rebound somehow bypassing Molloy who would have had a simple task to find an empty net.

On the hour mark Garrett tested Plummer with a low cross shot that the Glenavon keeper turned round the post but two minutes later it looked as though the hosts had gone in front when Harpur latched onto a poor clearance on the edge of the area and crashed a shot off the underside of the bar and seemingly over the line with Molloy also hitting the woodwork from the follow up but the referee and his assistant failed award the goal.

Hugh Dickson scores the winner with a back post header. Photo by Alan Weir.

Glenavon skipper Hugh Dickson did give the home side the lead with his second goal of the season as he popped up at the back post to nod in Harpur’s pinpoint cross following a Glenavon short corner. It was a worthy winner and the first goal for Dickson since he fractured his skull as he scored his last goal for Glenavon, which also proved to be a winner, against Cliftonville.

Photo credits: Stephen Greenaway and Alan Weir

Teams

Glenavon: Plummer, Magee, Dickson, Murray, Molloy (McDonagh 90), Carvill, Haughey, Costello (Grant 81), Davey (King 84), Johnston, Harpur. Subs not used: Walsh, Gracey.

Newry City: Gallagher, O’Connor, Black, McDonnell, Munster, Keegan, Hazley (Henderson 76), Garrett, Devlin (Keenan 58), Davidson, Graham (Boyd 76). Subs not used: Cummings, Acheson.

Referee: David Dunlop (Antrim)