Johnville 2; Ferrybank 0
Sunday last may have been St Valentine’s Day but love wasn’t in the air for the players and management of Ferrybank. They lost to Johnville in St Martin’s Park even though the home side failed to score during a game that never reached any great heights.
Two Ferrybank players had the misfortune to score OGs and the result means that the Abbeylands outfit remain on seven points. To make matters worse the only team behind them on the league table, Southend United, recorded their first victory of the season against Bohemians and now the gap between the two clubs is down to just three, with the two teams due to meet in a fortnight’s time.
The opening goal arrived after an extremely dull 38 minutes. Gavin McLawrence got a little bit of space out on the right and he cracked in a low drive into the six-yard box. Brian Mallon tried to clear but he sliced the ball past his own goalkeeper Hugh Mullally.
The second goal was a mirror image of the first. McLawrence took a pass from John O’Leary and again he hit a hard ball into the six-yard box. This time Pat Heffernan attempted to clear the danger but he also only succeeded in placing the ball into Hugh Mullally’s unguarded net.
Ferrybank couldn’t recover from that 48th-minute setback and the remainder of the game produced very little as Johnville, who are now nicely placed on the league table, held out without any difficulty whatsoever.
The game marked the debut of Gavin Keyes as a Premier League referee and the match official did very well indeed. He allowed the game flow and dealt with both sets of players superbly well – avery welcome newcomer to top-grade football in Waterford.
