This article is from page 81 of the 2009-02-10 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 81 JPG
AVENUE United issued a firm re- minder of their title ambitions with a convincing victory over Bridge Celtic on Sunday.
The win moves Avenue into sec- ond place, eight points behind league leaders Bunratty.
Avenue have the same amount of points, 18, as Lifford and Bridge Celtic but have two have less games played. Crucially, they have three games in hand on Bunratty.
They would rather have the points but Avenue know that if they can maintain the kind of form they showed against Bridge then they can make life uncomfortable at the top for Bunratty.
Their win also checked Bridge Celtic’s gathering momentum. John- ny Flynn’s side have been in very im- pressive form of late but looked like a shadow of the side that recently beat Lifford 2-1.
Bridge trailed to Gary Flynn’s 54th minute goal before being reduced to ten men. Celtic’s chances of retriev- ing anything evaporated when Trevor Howard was sent off.
Ciaran McManus struck twice late on to make sure of that.
McManus’ late arrival meant that Avenue actually started the game with ten players.
Not that you would have noticed. Playing upfront his own, the talented and seriously quick David Smyth caused Bridge plenty of problems.
David Russell and David Herlihy came closest to breaking the dead- lock for Avenue, the latter with a well-executed bicycle kick that flew just over the bar.
Bridge were struggling to break Av- enue down when Barry O’Connell’s through ball was intercepted by Rob- ert Forde in the 29th minute.
When goalkeeper John Healy de- cided to pick up the ball, referee Pa- draig Sutton blew for an indirect free
kick inside the Avenue box. Avenue survived when Ger O’Connell’s shot was cleared of the line.
Forde succumbed to injury soon af- ter and was replaced by David Mon- aghan. The re-alignment saw Dean Ryan move to centre back, Smyth come out to the right wing and Mon- aghan partner McManus up front.
The substitute was instantly in- volved when he played in Russell who lifted over the bar just before half time.
It wasn’t until the 54th minute that Avenue’s ascendancy was reflected on the scoreboard. Herlihy’s throw on the right was worked on by Rus- sell and Monaghan for Flynn to ram home from close range.
Bridge lost Trevor Howard in the 74th minute. Down a man and chas- ing an equaliser, Bridge inevitably left space at the back. They did and Avenue exploited it.
Herlihy released Monaghan down the right who squared the ball to
McManus to roll home in the 84th minute.
McManus grabbed his second of the game when he latched onto Brati- Slav’s flick on, raced clear and buried his shot.