MRvHJK

A very good result for the wee Glens tonight, but oh so nearly a great one, and back to the glory days of old! For a full time professional outfit, HJK must have got a bit of a shock tonight, the Glens were more than a match for the Finnish Champions and quite frankly really should have won the game. Gary Smyth at the back was immense, a lot was made of the giant centre-forward Kottila coming into this game, well he was man-marked by our Gary tonight and never got a sniff! At the other end namesake Andy Smith tortured the Finns all night, winning headers time and time again and valuable free-kicks around the area. Clear cut chances were few and far between though at either end, the best of ours came when Kevin Keegan found himself on the end of another Andy Smith flick-on and all alone at the far post, Kevin must have seen his name in lights as he swung wildly at the ball and skimmed an absolute sitter well wide from 2 yards!

But it was the second period when the Glens really got going, Andy Smith set the crowd alight when he wrestled with the centre-half for the ball and got through on goal only to choke his shot from the edge of the area. But things were heating up and the Glens were definitely getting the upper hand, then came the Keegan miss with everyone in the ground holding their heads. Coyler took off Scott Young and Tim McCann(II) and sent on Michael O'Neill and Tim McCann(I), retaining Kevin Keegan to now have the option of two wingers. It almost paid off when Darren Armour had his best chance of the night 15 minutes from time, a perfect cross found Darren standing free on the penalty spot and with the whole net to aim at he headed straight into the arms of the HJK keeper, he fell to the ground in disbelief! All the while Colin Nixon was surging forward from right back at every opportunity, what a game he had, and at times the Finns looked desperate.

That was in the second half when the Glens were well on top, the first had started lively enough but ran out of steam a bit after Chris Walker had to leave the field for what looked to me concussion. Chris had been clobbered by the elbow of the giant Kottila 10 minutes beforehand and took a full 4 minutes to recover, when he came back on it was obvious he wasn't right and Coyler replaced him with Darren Armour. Leeper was pulled back into the back four and Locky dropped back to cover Leepers spot, Armour went up front.

A goal would have been a lifeline for sure going into the second leg, but at the same time HJK looked dangerous on the break. The defence held surperb though and to the best of my recollection Elliott Morris only had two serious saves to make the entire evening, but save them he did, his handling was excellent.

So at the end of the day we had to settle for a 0-0 draw, not the worst result in the world and I can assure you this tie's not over yet, not by a long chalk. Technically I saw nothing between the two sides tonight, if anything the Glens looked the better team, if we can put together another gutsy display like tonights when we go to Finland next week I really think we have a chance - what price though that Kevin Keegan miss.