Slow burn for Formartine sees them fend off Huntly
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Formartine United 2 - Huntly FC 0
Although Huntly made Formartine work very hard for it, there is no doubt that United were well worth their clean sheet, two more goals in the “for” column and all three points.
It was a bit of a slow burn to victory for the North Lodgers who were worked hard to hold their own in a goalless first half before slowly but relentlessly ramping up the tempo and pressure in the second to produce the two well worked goals that guaranteed victory.
The opening three minutes revealed the character of the game to come, a run down the left flank by Combe yielded a corner for United which was
played shortish to Combe near the left corner of the box.
His shot was undercut and flew high over the bar.
From the goal kick Huntly counter-attacked with a charge through the middle by Grant who got to within shooting range but dragged his finishing effort wide of the left upright.
There was a lot of end to end stuff as each side vied to get the upper hand over the other.
It was pacy and determined but short on composure.
There was skill and trickery on display; pace and determination trumped fluidity and moves by either side either broke down or were countered before shots on target could be delivered.
Honours were pretty well even through the first half. Both sides seemed eager to get the ball up to their forwards as quickly as possible but the danger men : Wade and Campbell [making his home debut] for United and Morris and Grant for the visitors were closely marked and got little cuttance from those designated to deny them possession.
Keepers were under little pressure although a long through in from the left by Maclean was headed hard goalwards to force a decent save from a well placed Hobday.
About 15 minutes later a corner on the right for the visitors was played deep beyond the back post to Clark whose fierce header was a foot or two too high.
As time went on patience seemed to evaporate and each side increasingly succumbed to the temptation of long balls from the back to reach their
forwards, but marking was generally tight and the pitch after heavy overnight rain was heavy and made that a tactic that suited defenders more than forwards.
A minute before half-time Huntly came close to breaking the deadlock when a throw by Connelly from about 15 yards shy of the right coner reached the nesr side of the box where Grant played in Elphinstonre whose 12 yard shot rebounded from Macdonald’s right post to Blacklock who missed from close in.
United began the second half looking to impose a bit more method and composure to proceedings and began to gain increased possession through closer and shorter passing.
In the 50th minute a passage of slick inter passing orchestrated by Rodger, brought in Norris, Gallagher and Combe whose cross from the left was headed arrowly wide by Wade.
A minute after that Huntly tested Macdonald who tipped away a sharp drive by Blacklock.
Formartine were beginning to look the more likely to end the stalemate but it took them until the 70 th minute to do so.
Maclean.s prodigious throw-ins are an increasing part of the Formartine armoury these days and he produced an absolute howitzer to hurl the ball from near the right corner flag high over the 6 yard box to meet the head of Kieran ADAMS who outjumped everyone and crashed home a header for the opening goal in the 70th minute.
This opened the game out as Huntly tried to force a leveller but in so doing inevitably gave their hosts more space in which to operate.
United were by now looking a wee bit slicker than the visitors and managed to increase their lead with four minutes to go.
A minute or two of pressure round the Huntly goal was relieved by a goal kick but the ball was picked up by Norris who played it forward into the inside right channel for COMBE who set off towards goal.
Hobday advanced to narrow the angles but the winger was savvy enough to wrong foot the keeper before drilling the ball home to put the result beyond any doubt.
