Eamonn McCarty’s Crewe side were made to work all the way against Fivemiletown to maintain their unbeaten record which dates back to February in all competitions.
Fivemiletown United 1 Crewe United 2 (AET)
Isaac Gilkinson Premier Cup
The home side made the better start in front of a large home crowd at the Valley Stadium. It wasn’t long before they made it count and the dangerous Simon Warrington capitalised on a mistake from Dean Youle to slot home and take a deserved lead.
However, Crewe were spurred into action and began to dominate the ball but couldn’t create any real clear-cut opportunities before the break. Just before half time Conor Maxwell and Tiernan Mulvenna linked up down the left, but Mulvenna’s cross eluded everyone and proceedings for the half were brought to an end.
The second half was more of the same, but Fivemiletown always looked as if they could cause problems to the Crewe back line on the break. It took a beautiful curling effort from 20 yards from Noel Halfpenny to level things up and as always from him it was a super finish.
With both sides looking for the winner in normal time, they went toe to toe and the game opened up without anyone finding the illusive winner before the final whistle went.
Both sides had given everything over the 90 minutes and legs looked tired as extra time progressed. Simon Warrington cut inside from the left and struck a beautiful shot that curled onto the Crewe post and Charlie Eaton in goals was relieved to gather into his hands.
Crewe were determined to try and win the game too and brought on the evergreen, and ever reliable, Michael McQuitty in a central striker role. He caused the home side problems with his aerial presence but with only 2 minutes left he wriggled free on the left hand side and calmly slotted home for yet another important goal for the Glenavy side.
Overall it was a really determined win against a very good Fivemiletown side and The Valley Stadium remains, as always, a very difficult place to win at.
Next up is another long away day in the Intermediate Cup next week to Strabane FC.
Crewe United Reserves 5 Moneyslane Reserves 4
Reserve Championship
The progress for the Reserves continues at pace as manager Craig Leworthy savoured another home victory in the Reserve Championship and move up to 3rd in the table.
It was a feast of goals at Crewe Park with young starlets Jamie Devenny and Conal McDonald giving Crewe the perfect start with 2 goals in the opening 5 minutes. But the visitors were not to be deterred and Mark Anderson responded with his own brace in the space of five minutes with the first coming in the 33rd minute to level things up. Recent signing Ronan Hamill stepped up with his first Crewe goal to ensure the home side went in 3-2 up at half time.
Conal McDonald, in great form, thought he had won the game for Crewe with 2 quick fire goals just after half time to put the home side 5-2 up and complete his hatrick. But an absolutely spectactular OG from Reserve captain Michael O’Neill gave the visitors hope as they pulled another back and Blakely scored for Moneyslane with 20 minutes left to make sure the home side had to continue to work for their victory.
Another super performance from the young Reserve side with many knocking on the First team door which is great to see.
The Reserves are back in action next weekend as they travel to Tandragee Rovers Reserves.
