Newcastle Twice Deny City

MCFC Reserves 2 – 2 NUFC Reserves

A tale of two halves saw Newcastle twice fight back to earn a credible draw as the young City side did not perform to the same tempo in the second half as they had shown in the first half.
An early goal from Karl Moore and a second from Ched Evans were cancelled out by Lawrence Matthewson’s real blunder and a second half deflected shot from Mark Doninger to end City’s very slim hopes of winning both the reserve title and the academy title.
Right from the kick off you could see that City were up for this game as their forward line were all over Newcastle’s defence; and so it was no surprise to see City take the lead in the seventh minute when a neat reverse pass by man of the match Ashley Grimes onto his strike partner, Ched Evans. Evans then bore down on goal before slipping an inch perfect cross pass to Karl Moore who fired hard past the keeper and of the inner stanchion.
Ten minutes later Paul Marshall had a good long range shot that went just over. But then disaster struck just after twenty minutes when Matthewson did his Coco the clown impression by shouting for the ball but not collecting it and forced the ball of Garry Breen who was waiting to clear it had Lawrence not acted in his usual hair brained manner. His days at City will surely be numbered.
Lawrence was let of the hook six minutes later when a strong run by Moore allowed him to release Evans on the edge of the box who cut to the right and Adam Clayton made a decoy run of to his right to allow Ched to get his shot off which took a deflection on its way into the bottom corner of the net.
City continued to press the play up the pitch and Fraser Forster in goal for Newcastle was earning his money.
What happened at half time saw Newcastle come out with much more purpose and City’s drive from midfield seemed to diminish. I would have to single out the usually reliable Paul Marshall there as the commitment to win the ball back seemed to disappear from his usual game.
City changed the front pairing to bring David Ball on for Evans, but with the midfield being the main problem, this did little to change things and City had to clear a header of the line from a corner on seventy minutes.
The inevitable happened seven minutes later when City’s defence failed to deal with some Newcastle possession on the left of the penalty area, the ball came through to Doninger and his shot seemed to deflect into the bottom right corner of the goal.
City had a good chance from Ball with eight minutes to go when he beat the off-side trap, but Forster again pulled of a good save to dent City what would have been an undeserved score line and three points.


City: Mattewson(GK), Logan, Williamson, D’Laryea(Capt.), Breen(Mee 80), Marshall, Clayton, Williams, Evans(Ball 68), Grimes, Moore.

Subs: Mentel(GK), Obeng, Mouritsen.

Newcastle: Forster(GK), Gate, Cave, Doninger, Edgar, Morris, LuaLua, Pattison, Carroll, Troisi (Donaldson, 45), O'Brien (Godsmark, 68)

Subs: Wiafe Danquah, Francis, Marwood.

Att: 301

MotM: Ashley Grimes – was at the heart of all things creative for City and worked hard to see Newcastle’s defence get as little rest as possible.