Aengus 2 - 2 Chaffinch (389892100)

Overcast weather free of rain made for a crowd turnout of 62126 at Backdoor terrace today. Osvald Viitkar was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Carlos Fragoso and Pontus Silfwerling. Aengus tactics involved an interesting 4-4-2 combination. They fielded: Black - O'Neill, Smyth, Lawless, Denning - Lawler, Ewing, Costello, Evans - Empey, Quinn.

Chaffinch decided to use a 2-5-3 set up. Starters: Scherfort - Achenza, McCarthy - O'Meara, Barber, Synnott, Carey, Watters - Rosbach, Lunn, Curley.

A free kick aimed at the keeper's far post almost gave Chaffinch the lead 12 minutes in, but the ball just wasn't able to squirm its way through the defensive wall. After 21 minutes, R. Quinn came in from the right, feinted, then sped past the off-balance defender to make the score 1 - 0, giving Aengus the lead. Aengus's M. O'Neill got himself booked for a foul. W. Synnott came close to levelling the score 27 minutes into the game, as he was set up with a through ball coming in from the left, but his shot hit the post. C. O'Meara's tried to storm through the defence after 33 minutes, but T. Denning was just too fast to shake off and the rest of the defence got back to cover. A well placed corner kick from W. Synnott was followed by J. Carey's hard but accurate header. The well executed routine resulted in a goal for Chaffinch, the score now 1 - 1. The visitors' central defence should have had no trouble clearing the pass to J. Lawless, but the Aengus player managed to shrug them off and fired a low shot past the keeper to give his team the lead. 2 - 1! The teams went for the halftime break at 2 - 1. Chaffinch claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 64 percent.

The visitors didn't give in and, after 54 minutes, W. Synnott got through the home side's central line of defence, rolling in the equaliser to make it 2 - 2. Aengus's L. Smyth was shown a yellow card for standing over the ball and blocking an opponent's quick free kick after 71 minutes. 88 minutes into the match, the referee signalled for a Chaffinch substitution. S. Kelly came on for W. Synnott. Possession in this half belonged to Chaffinch, who controlled the ball 65 percent of the time.

The most dominating Aengus player was without a doubt R. Quinn. On the other hand, S. Empey's play was disheartening. Chaffinch's best player was M. Curley. C. Scherfort was a disappointment, however. The match ends 2 - 2.