Under-pressure young guns finish season on a low

Kelburne 5s rounded off their season with a defeat despite another successful season for the Paisley side.

A young side, bolstered by the additions of senior players, Willie Hunt, Hamish Walker, Ryan Wood, Dick Donaldson and Mark Fulton, was made up of junior players between the ages of 11 and 13 years old.

Greenock started the game strongly and with a high tempo, which they maintained over the course of the whole enctounter.

Kelburne struggled to cope with the pressure in the opening exchanges, with Greenock’s performance one of the more impressive that they had come up against all season.

But to Kelburne`s credit they managed to keep the score line to 0-0 in the first half, through sheer determination.

However, they struggled at times to maintain possession and apply any pressure to Greenock inside their half.

Several half chances were created though, through tireless running by Fulton, who managed to find space and pick up some long through balls which forced the Greenock goalkeeper to come off his line to block the attempts on goal.

Dick Donaldson also worked very hard in midfield to win possession but lacked support from the younger Kelburne midfield players who were outmuscled by their Greenock counterparts.

The Kelburne 5th team have made a habit this season of being level or in front of the opposition at half-time but have then gone on to concede goals late on in the second half.

History repeated itself as with less than 10 minutes to go the Greenock attack fired a lifted ball into the D which made it past the Kelburne defence into the centre of the D, allowing a scramble for the ball, which a Greenock player managed to score from.

This was harsh on Kelburne but the reality was that they had started to tire under the constant pressure from the fit and physical Greenock side and the second goal followed not long after.

Kelburne continued to try and get a goal back through Fulton and Donaldson who tried again and again to make scoring opportunities for the Kelburne Juniors but to no avail and the game finished 0-2 to Greenock.