NEWRY CITY FOOTBALL CLUB
NEWRY CITY 3 LOUGHALL 2
NEWRY City made hard work of beating Division One side Loughall at the Showgrounds on Saturday.
In this pre-season friendly Gerry Flynn’s men led 3-0 and were apparently coasting - but the visitors hit two goals in a three-minute spell to push the Premier side all the way to the final whistle.
Still City just about deserved their win and they had fine players in midfielder Niall Henderson and defender Ian Curran while up front Chris Morgan netted twice with his strike partner Stephen Garrett firing home the other one.
Local boy Mark Quinn, who has been with Banbridge Town for quite a few seasons, came on immediately after the interval, set up the second goal and gave a steady display with some crunching tackles. And he used the ball well too.
The first half however, was a dull affair with few scoring opportunities at either end.
But with four minutes left to the break Newry broke the deadlock. Kevin Keegan released Garrett with an incisive pass and the speedy frontman took his chance in style, coolly knocking the ball low into the corner as Mark Robinson advanced.
Sixty seconds after the break City could have doubled their tally but Morgan failed to make contact with a teasing Keegan right wing cross.
However, Newry did go two in front on 51 minutes. Garrett cut the ball back to Quinn who in turn picked out Morgan who deftly touched past Robinson from 10 yards.
Nine minutes later Morgan failed to take another scoring opportunity but less than sixty seconds later he had atoned for his miss by popping up in the right spot to steer Henderson’s right wing centre low into the net.
It seemed the match was over, although no one told Loughall. On 69 minutes Dean Smith sprung the City offside trap before beating the exposed Nathan Morley Hillen, who had just minutes before replaced first team keeper Andy Coleman.
If that wasn’t bad enough the Division One side pulled another back, this time on 72 minutes Neil Alderdice firing in an outrageous 35-yard drive that curled and dipped underneath the crossbar as a frantically back-pedalling Morley Hillen just couldn’t get to it.
In the last 15 minutes Newry shut up shop and although Loughall did have a few half-chances they never really looked like earning with a draw.
NEWRY CITY: Andy Coleman, Ian Curran, Ross Black, Davy Munster, Emmett Friars, Kevin Keegan, Niall Henderson, Steven Ferguson, Alan Davidson, Stephen Garrett and Chris Morgan with subs: Darren King, Mark Quinn, Paul Keenan, Lukasz Adamczyk, Nathan Morley Hillen and Darren Cassidy.