Heatley shows his quality to fire Crues into decider
CRUSADERS: Doherty, Burns, Coates, Lowry, Ward, Caddell, Forsythe, Owens, Ruddy, Heatley, Clarke. Subs not used: O’Neill, Cushley, Snoddy, Thompson, Patterson. LARNE: Dougherty, Sule, Ramsey, McEleney, Scullion (Stuart, 81 mins), McDaid, Donnelly, Tilney, McNally, Cosgrove, Hughes. Subs not used: Devlin, Kelly, Hassin, Gilmour.
Referee: Shane Andrews (Comber)
MUCH has been made of Larne’s millions, the incredible investment put in by owner Kenny Bruce and their ambitious plans.
Crusaders aren’t exactly paupers themselves having secured finances beyond their dreams thanks to consistently qualifying for Europe.
All that cash has enabled both clubs to go full-time in moves that have been the talk of Irish League football for months.
What doesn’t change, regardless of how many training sessions he has, is the match-winning qualities of Paul Heatley.
He was at it again last night, scoring the only goal of the game in the Toals County Antrim Shield semi-final for Crusaders against Larne at Seaview.
Heatley’s 65th-minute header was his seventh strike in the same number of games.
The 31-year-old may have had a patchy start to the campaign but class is permanent, and Heatley has plenty of it.
Larne will be in the Danske Bank Premiership next season and, if they are to emulate Crusaders and become top dogs in the country, which is the longterm plan, they will have to cope with players like Heatley.
Or they could sign them! With the other last-four clash between Ballymena and Linfield postponed, last night’s Seaview clash took centre stage.
Billed as the irresistible force versus the invincible outfit due to the excellent recent form of Crusaders and Larne’s unbeaten run in the Championship, there was a healthy crowd.
Larne made one change to their starting line-up from Sat- urday’s 4-0 league success over PSNI with Michael Dougherty replacing Conor Devlin in goal.
The Crues, who defeated Institute 3-2 the same afternoon in the top flight, switched four players, with Billy Joe Burns, Philip Lowry, Declan Caddell and Michael Ruddy coming in for Mark McCrystal, Matthew Snoddy, Michael Carvill and Rory Patterson.
The Crues entered the game on the back of a five-match winning run. For Larne it was twice that, scoring 34 goals in those 10 victorious games.
One of those successes was convincing against Ards in the quarter-finals of the Shield.
The Larne players knew this was a considerable step up. Early on, Heatley was lively for the home side, firing wide and then warming Dougherty’s hands.
On 25 minutes, Colin Coates got involved in a needless tussle with former team-mate Martin Donnelly. Pushing and shoving between the pair led to referee Shane Andrews cautioning both.
Larne’s Fuad Sule was booked shortly after for what was a rash challenge on Jordan Forsythe.
Truth be told, those yellow cards were about the most eventful incidents in the first half.
The second period was just moments old when David Scullion blocked Heatley’s powerful volley. Next up, Ross Clarke curled a free-kick over.
Larne were holding their own and their fans were roaring for a penalty to no avail just before the hour mark when Scullion tangled with Kyle Owens.
The Crues broke the deadlock on 65 minutes. Clarke provided an inswinging delivery from the left and the ever-alert Heatley stole in behind the defence to head home from close range.
It would prove to be the decisive moment.
Crusaders won the Shield last season and are keen to do so again. As for Larne, this was their second defeat of the campaign having previously lost 3-2 to Glentoran in the League Cup.
The good news for them is they will be playing the Crues on a more regular basis going forward.