Stephen’s high five as Crues banish Blues

50, LINFIELD 42

Heatley

1

PROUD Seaview boss Stephen Baxter felt Saturday’s 2-1 win over Linfield was “as good a Crusaders performance as I’ve seen for five years”.

It was hard to argue with that assessment as the Crues’ high-octane display placed the champions in a stranglehold for long periods of a thrilling game that was in the balance until the final kick.

Jordan Stewart shanked a volley wide in injurytime and with it went Linfield’s chances of scraping a draw that would have been very harsh on the home side.

Baxter (inset) said: “The manner of our performance is what pleased me the most.

“The amount of times we were in their box. It was effort after effort.

“We had to see out the last three minutes of the football match, heading one or two out but that was as good a Crusaders performance as

I’ve seen for five years.”

The home side actually trailed at the break having dominated much of the play, with Christy Manzinga adding another wonderful strike to his growing collection.

But the Crues tore into their opponents on the restart, piling on the pressure until Adam Lecky drew an impetuous foul from Linfield’s Chris Shields inside the box.

Ben Kennedy stepped up to take the spot-kick but his confidence turned out to be misplaced as he shovelled a Panenka-style effort against the bar and over.

“It’s alright saying it now when you’ve won but you don’t chip penalties down the middle when you’re 1-0 down in a big match,” said Baxter with a wry smile.

Yet that glaring miss simply caused the Crues to redouble their efforts and a couple of minutes later their little and large combo in attack saw Lecky flick a header through for Paul Heatley to grab the equaliser.

Jordan Forsythe then smashed a stunning curled effort against the post that was millimetres from crossing the line before Kennedy redeemed himself by clipping a wonderful half-volley over

Blues keeper Chris Johns for the winner with seven minutes to play.

“Ben’s got this ability,” added Baxter. “That’s what he’s all about. He’s got that quality that will score you goals and he gets into good areas all the time to do that.

“I thought Adam Lecky was also simply outstanding with his link play and the quality of his football.”

Linfield boss David Healy said: “We got done by two long balls.

“I’m not quite sure where the 15 minutes came from at the start of the second half, we lost too many possessions, made poor decisions, got away with the penalty only to concede a soft goal two minutes later.

“I’ll be pushing the players as hard as I can this week to try to get a reaction for the Cliftonville game on Saturday.”