Cairns’ men left with mountain to climb after humbling defeat at Castledawson
The visitors found it impossible to deal with Moyola’s midfield maestro Eugene Gallagher.
The latter sent over a superb cross, which evaded the Glebe defence and found Darren Walls at the back post, who slotted the ball into the net after eight minutes. Midway through the half Robbie Lucas was upended in the visitors’ penalty area and having placed the ball on the penalty spot he calmly stroked it into the net to give Moyola Park a two goal advantage. Just before the half-hour mark, Walls struck a 35-yard thunderbolt past a hapless Glebe keeper. Eight minutes before the interval, Gallagher got on the score-sheet to round off a superb half for Mervyn Pattison’s side.
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Hide AdThe second half saw the visitors make a more determined effort to get back into the game but the home defence, well marshalled by captain Steven McQuillan, restricted them to few scoring opportunities. Debutant goalkeeper Steven Kelly eased a goal-bound shot over his crossbar and Gareth Stewart cleared the ball off the home goal-line following a corner kick.
Moyola Park’s best opportunity of the second half fell to Steven Kenning but he was unable to add the final touch to steer the ball into the Glebe net leaving the second half scoreless. This was a very encouraging result for Moyola Park bearing in mind that two players Chris Dowie and Mark Waddell were serving suspensions carried over from last season, new signing Jason Paul was unavailable and goalkeeper Marty Farniok, like Dowie and Waddell, was restricted to watching from the side-lines.