Macroom battle back to take draw
Leeds 3 Macroom A 3
Thursday March 11 2010
AFTER starting brightly Macroom had to battle hard to pull off a late fightback and share the points, but only just, in this Premier A League encounter at Leeds Park on Sunday morning.
In a fast-paced encounter that had goals, incident and controversy one element that stood out were the lethal attacking abilities of both sides. In fact, the ball was in the net nine times, goals disallowed three times, and that's not counting the number of near misses.
In a mainly free-flowing game, Macroom started by far the brighter, hungrier side and it only took eight minutes for them to score. This came after Darrell Holden won the ball in midfield and skipped past two lacklustre challenges before picking out brother Keith, positioned between two defenders, who turned and cooly slotted the ball home under the diving Ger Maher.
After this Leeds upped their game and as the tie became more competitive, and the challenges heavier, the sides were fairly evenly matched in terms of chances on goal. On 17 minutes a, by now typical, pass from midfield found the hard-working Johnny Cooney on the left corner of the Macroom area. As keeper Diarmuid McCarthy and the right back charged him down he slid the ball goalwards. Trevor O'Brien raced back for a last gasp clearance, but the goal was allowed – 1-1.
As the yellow cards became more frequent, Darrell Holden was booked for a late challenge on the edge of the Macroom box on 22 minutes. Up stepped Gary Nolan and his left-footed effort, from the left, remained out of reach until it snagged in the top, far corner of the net– 2-1 with Leeds now in the ascendancy.
Leeds had the ball in the net again before half time but it was disallowed. Notably, however, Macroom also had some real chances. Those chances took a beating very early in the second half when a poor clearance saw Mark Neilan collect the ball and split the defence with his pass to Johnny Cooney, who turned and slotted home under the advancing McCarthy, 3-1.
From here it was end to end stuff, with goal chanes coming almost on top of one another. Macroom, via William O'Riordan, had the ball in the net on 56 minutes but it was disallowed for offside and it was the same at the other end for Leeds.
O'Riordan nearly got one back with a great drive but his shot was pushed for a corner by another excellent save from Maher. However, the resulting Brendan O'Mahony corner broke to an onrushing John Angland who lashed the ball home.
With Leeds increasingly dangerous on the break, Macroom still pushed on for the equaliser. As corner followed corner, O'Riordan popped up and headed home only for the ball to, again, be cleared off the line – this time, however, referee Damian Klier decided, controversially, it was with a hand.
Keith Holden was clinical from the spot on 84 minutes but from here Macroom had to defend their equaliser against a late Leeds onslaught. In fact, it was Diarmuid McCarthy who repeatedly saved the day, twice denying sub Stephen Meade from close-in in the dying moments.
