Burleigh goal downs Kesh

Editorial Department • Published 25 Feb 2010 09:52 0 Comments

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Glentoran's Shane McCabe and Glenavon's Ryan Harper, whose parents are originally from Maguiresbridge, discuss their sending off as they make their way off the pitch during Saturday's league meeting.

Kesh Reserves 0; Enniskillen Rangers 1;

A William Burleigh goal in the final quarter of the game moved Enniskillen Rangers up to joint second in Division Two on Saturday.

A strengthened Kesh outfit were always going to provide a tricky opponent for Rangers but Burleigh's strike, tucked away at the second attempt, keeps Billy Reynolds' side right in the promotion mix with Rangers six points behind leaders Beragh Swifts but with three games in hand.

Last season Rangers narrowly missed out on gaining promotion to the top flight having been among the top teams throughout the campaign only for their form to dessert them at the crucial period, and Reynolds believes that his side will have learned from that.

"We know from our experiences last year that you can't afford to take anything for granted and hopefully we will learn from that. We have a strong squad, as we showed this week where we were missing a few players, and everybody is working hard to get into the squad let alone into the starting 11. What we need now is to get the same type of performance and effort week in, week out as there are a lot of good teams in this division who have the same aspirations as ourselves," he commented.

On the game, he added: "It was a well earned win against a Kesh side that had a potent combination of Mark Jones and Nathan Cashel up front. Chances though were few and far between with defences on top and I was especially pleased with our defence who dealt well with their attack."

A tight encounter saw both sides struggle to breakdown the oppositions rearguard while in the middle of the park there was a titanic tussle over the 90 minutes between Burleigh and Mark Duffy. Kesh though did have a good opportunity to take the lead after only ten minutes. Jones and Cashel combined with Jones putting Cashel in on the right and he slid his shot under 15 year old goalkeeper Paddy Sweeney only to see the ball go past the far post.

In truth this was to be the home side's best chance of the game and as the half wore on Rangers beagn to settle into the contest with Kesh goalkeeper Jerome Carelton making a terrific save to deny William Armstrong while Burleigh saw a shot dip over the bar as the game remained goalless at the interval.

Rangers had began the contest with a makeshift attack of Mark Beckett and Paul Ramsey and this was further hit when they lost Beckett through injury, forcing Reynolds to push Gordon Cutler up front from the centre of the defence with Tom Irvine impressively slotting in at the back. And the gamble was to pay off for Rangers with 15 minutes to go as Cutler was involved in the decisive goal. He received the ball from Andy Carlton before feeding Davy Johnston who laid the ball back to Burleigh. Burleigh's shot was saved by the feet of Carelton but the ball broke again and Burleigh showed great determination to get to the ball first to force it over the line.

Kesh enjoyed plenty of the ball in the latter stages of the encounter but Rangers coped well at the back with whatever Kesh had to throw at them as they claimed three important points.

Kesh manager Noel Ellis was pleased with the performance of his side although slightly disappointed not to have come away with a point.

"Rangers possibly shaded the game but I did think that we were maybe worthy of a point from it. If we can play as well as this though for the rest of the season then we should be ok," he said.

This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 25 Feb 10

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