News & Fixtures

 

UCD AFC suffered defeat in their last game of the 2010 season following a 4-1 loss to Sporting Fingal.

It’s not often that the referee qualifies for man of the match but until Glen Crowe’s wonderful sixty seventh minute strike referee Anthony Buttimer was on my list. The evening started with the official informing players that this was his last game.   Odd because, according to my calculations, he has a couple more seasons to serve before he reaches the age limit.   Anyway, swansong or not, this match was as good as over after five minutes thanks to Mr Buttimer’s perfectly legitimate but typically pedantic observance of the law of advantage. 

After just two of those minutes an error by Sean Harding left UCD exposed down their right flank.   Evan McMillan came to the rescue by blocking off Crowe’s route to goal and play continued for perhaps a full ten seconds before Mr Buttimer, seeing that there was no home advantage, brought it back to penalise the UCD skipper.   The resulting free kick yielded a corner.   From this Glen Crowe headed Sporting crisply into the lead.   Three minutes later another likely foul down the opposite flank went unpunished.   This time Conan Byrne benefited from the advantage and another crisp header by O’Neill from his cross doubled the margin.

You could almost hear the air escaping from UCD’s buoyancy as a long exhausting season took its toll.   Sporting consolidated third place in the table and a place in Europe with a third goal after twenty four minutes.   A shrewd pass from Kirby released Finn and his low cross was scrambled in via the crossbar by O’Neill.

It was by no means one way traffic, indeed Fingal’s Brendan Clarke was the busier of the keepers but the visitors lacked any finish for their usual good football.   Whereas Sporting opening goals were incisive headers, UCD’s two efforts in this area were tame efforts by Creevy and Kilduff which Clarke caught with comfort.   However Brian Shortall really tested his prowess in first half added time with a fierce drive that Clarke did well to turn behind at full stretch.

Considering they were already well beaten, UCD’s redoubled efforts on the restart were admirable and the visitors eventually scored when Paul Corry’s corner was flicked on by Evan McMillan and turned in at the far post by Michael Leahy.   But a fine goal from Glen Crowe killed off the whiff of a UCD revival after 67 minutes.   Conan Byrne, as always, was involved.   He crossed for Kirby to head back to the veteran striker on the edge of the area.   A touch, a turn and Crowe sent a searing drive into the top left corner of Billy Brennan’s net. 

Sporting manager Liam Buckley was as graceful in victory as he had been when UCD won the earlier encounter at the Morton Stadium saying that he had been glad to face the Students when the visitors had nothing to play for. Indeed, having passed the test to retain Premier Division status a couple of weeks ago, the adrenaline that fuelled UCD’s football had evaporated like wintergreen on the increasingly wintery air. 

SPORTING FINGAL : Brendan Clarke; Kenny Browne, Colin Hawkins, Shaun Williams, Lorcan Fitzgerald; Shane McFaul, Ronan Finn, Alan Kirby (Keith Quinn 89); Conan Byrne, Gary O’Neill, Glen Crowe. 

UCD : Billy Brennan; Sean Harding, Evan McMillan, Michael Leahy, Brian Shortall; Robbie Creevy, Greg Bolger, Paul Corry; David McMillan, Ciaran Kilduff, Chris Mulhall. 

SPORTING FINGAL: 4 (Crowe 2, 67 O’Neill 5, 24) UCD 1 (Leahy 59)

Referee: Mr Anthony Buttimer

Report by BRIAN de SALVO