Premier League.

15th October 05.  Glentoran 2  Armagh City 0

What's that they say about gettin results when you're not playing well? Dear oh dear ...  For long long spells yesterday we were awful once again, the best accolade I can give this side right now is that we've become hard to beat, be it through dogged determination, luck, or a combination of both! Don't get me wrong, I still have great faith in the quality of the players in this team, and it can surely only be a matter of time before they turn it on, but my goodness, sometimes at the minute it really is hard to watch.

First half was memorable solely for the inventiveness of Shaun Holmes. The former Wrexham midfielder half-vollyed a clearance from Armagh keeper Paul Rice right on the half way line, only to see his speculative effort drift wide of the surprised keepers' goal, then five minutes later warmed the same goalie's hands with an absolute screamer from all of 35 yards destined for the top right hand corner. Other than that the sight of new signing Peter McCann limping off after 20 minutes to be replaced by Scotty Young, and Armagh's Davy Ward miss-kicking an absolute sitter in front of goal were the only talking points.of the opening 45 minutes.

Second half it must be said we did look a wee bit better, but while we still weren't giving keeper Rice near enough to do in my opinion, the game at least was being played more and more in the Armagh City half. Then bang on the hour mark the opener. Chris Morgan (on from the start and later replaced by Halliday) found Gary Browne in the box some 12-odd yards centre of goal, the ball arrived at an awkward height, but despite also the close attention of 2 defenders the striker managed to bring it down, twist one way then the other before placing the ball firmly past keeper Rice into his bottom right hand corner.- a quality strike. The cheer around the Oval was more a sigh of relief!

News filtering through now from Coleraine and Solitude that both Portadown and the scum were being held to 1-1 draws helped bring the crowd back to life, and Browne was unlucky to see Rice bring off another fine save when he could have doubled his tally. Halliday then replaced Morgan with about 20 minutes to go, and within 5 minutes the Glens were 2 up thanks to him! Despite falling on his arse, the big lad managed squeeze the ball across the Armagh 18 yard line to find 'Homer', I thought Shaun should have passed the ball to Browne free on his left, but instead calmly picked his spot and slotted the ball past Rice once again into his bottom right hand corner. A goal well deserved from Holmes who looks to be getting better and better. Game over, but not before Armagh forced 2 great saves out of Elliott Morris near the death as the Glens went back to sleep.

No matter, the Irish Premier League Champions are back on top of the Irish Premier League, and still not outta first gear - hard to watch it may be sometimes ...   but it must be scarin the **** outta the rest of them ;-)

Don't ya just luv it when a plan comes together ;-)  Holidays over - BallymacGSC.com is back!