Best Performance of the Season gets Dub the 3 Points

Cherryvale, Sunday 1 April 2012, 1:30PM

Shaftsbury Rec (0)2 Dub FC (3)4

Dub achieved their best result of the season by beating Shaftsbury Rec at Cherryvale on Sunday with a brilliant performance. With the website showing four names as available on Friday night the weekend looked bleak for the Dub management, even at 12.55pm with only 9 players available conversation centred around whether Dub gave Shaftsbury a 2-0 win and played a friendly taking some of their players or just forfeited the game altogether and rang round the players to tell them to have a Sunday off.

But Dub always find a way of getting 11 and by 1.10pm, 20 mins before kick off after a few phone calls, 11 names were on the teamsheet... well 10 including Cormac... and one more to arrive at half-time.

Dub started with Plunkett in goal, D, Green, Dickson and Hill in defence, Abatte, McKillop, McGinley and Bowd in midfield and Hodgkinson (the older one) and Kernan up front. After being beaten by Shaftsbury 6-1 in the Shield and 5-1 already in the league this season the Dub team-talk centered around just going out to enjoy the game, and that is exactly what Dub did, but once they had seen that Shaftsbury were laughing and joking and expecting that the game would be a walkover Dub seemed motivated to make a game of it.

After weathering an initial Shaftsbury onslaught Dub took the game to the Rec starting with some strong tackles at the back, great running in midfield and good interplay up front.

This pressure took its toll on Shaftsbury and Dub took the lead on 15 mins after a free-kick was awarded 15 yards into the Shaftsbury half. Bowd swung the free-kick into the box and, after being nodded down by McGinley, Hodgkinson (the older one) was on hand to put the ball in the net. 1-0 Dub.

Dubs second came 10 minutes later with almost a carbon copy of the first. A free-kick was awarded roughly 5 yards into the Shaftsbury half and again Bowd floated a free-kick into the box, and after an initial shot was blocked the ball fell to Kernan who made no mistake from 6 yards. Queue loud celebrations as Kernan has now scored in every season of Dubs existence despite the fact he has been told multiple times by specialists not to kick a ball again, not because of his chronic knee problems just because he's rubbish... you just can't keep a good dog down. Comparisons were made after the game, mostly by Cormac, to a certain Mr Giggs who has scored in every Premier League season, only Giggs is slightly slimmer, better looking and can score goals from outside the 18 yard box. 2-0 Dub 25 mins.

Shaftsbury were clearly shocked at going 2-0 down and they were even more shocked just before half-time when Bowd sent a 40 yard pass with the outside of his boot into the path of McGinley who coolly rounded the keeper and slotted the ball into the net. 3-0 Dub half-time.

The half-time team-talk was basically "more of the same please" but Shaftsbury pulled one back on the 50 min mark after a mix-up between Green and Plunkett allowed the Shaftsbury striker to lob the ball into an open net. Blame goes to Kernan for shouting "keepers" from the half-way line, but Plunkett should know better for listening to that eejit in the first place.

Dub didn't let this goal affect them and restored the three goal advantage on the hour mark after some great work by McKillop and Bowd, who released McGinley down the left wing who crossed for Hodgkinson to fire the ball into the net for his second and Dub's fourth. Queue the best celebration that Dub have seen for a while and a bit of breathing space again.

Credit to Shaftsbury for not giving up and they pulled another goal back to make it 4-2 - nobody could tell who scored it so we'll just have to put it down as A.N Other (Ok Kristian?). The whole Dub team put in a fantastic performance with Green and Captain Dickson immense at the back, Abatte putting in an amazing shift on the right wing despite getting clattered half-way through the second half and McKillop on the left wing giving 100% for the full 90 mins. Plunkett pulled off a string of fine saves towards the end to keep the two goal margin and Ron the ref decided that these just edged him Man of the Match over McGinley who had another great all-round performance.

After that performance it could be argued that it may be a better idea to just rush round getting players every Sunday morning from now on... only joking... it's sh!t so lets make sure we have our names down as soon as possible for the last game of the season against Manor Hearts after Easter!

Squad

Ronan McKillop, Alan Plunkett, Gareth Dickson, David Green, Dominic Donnelly, Andy Bowd, Paddy McGinley, Kristian Hill, Gio Abatte, Cormac Kernan (sub 60 mins), Chris Hodgkinson

Subs

Jimmy Lavery (60 mins)

Match Statistics

Goals	Cormac Kernan Chris Hodgkinson (2) Paddy McGinley
Assists	Chris Hodgkinson Andy Bowd Paddy McGinley (2)
Yellow cards	-
Red cards	-
Man of the match	Alan Plunkett