MK Irish on top at Christmas

Today top of the league MK Irish played 6th placed Potton Utd while Brackley town played their big FA cup second round match away to Stockport County. The opening five mins were not a pinic for Mk Irish as Potton came out fighting with the match evenly balenced and attacks on goal at both ends.

Mk Irish with a bugler in the stand and a drummer behind the goal had plenty of passionate support to motivate them on to try and break the early deadlock which still remained after 30 mins. Unfortunately the close play was not the same at Stocktport who by the end of the second quarter of the first half were 2-0 up. In the third quarter, the ball moved more frequently up towards Potten’s end. A Mk Irish player completely broke through the Potten defence only to have the opportunity dashed by the referee blowing up his whistle. Potter’s goal kicks often took a long time with complaints of time wasting coming from the Mk Irish fans towards the linesmen and officials. Justice seemed to follow with Mk Irish going one nil up in the 32nd min which opened up the floodgates with a following on MK close shot which hit the potten cross bar in the 33rd min and another close shot which went narrowly wide close to the right goal post in the 34th min. As the match moved towards half time, Potton tried to cool things down with some counter attack play but MK Irish kept the pressure on with some more attacking play of their own. Potton tried to deal with it by a foul in the 39 th min which led to the first yellow card being shown to the offending Potten defender In the 41st min, the Potten goalie had to save and tip a close shot over the cross bar to prevent a second goal going in. A Mk Irish corner followed and more attacking play and shots on the Potton goal. All Potten could do was to keep up the fouling with a second yellow being awarded against them. By the end of the first half, Potten appeared only too glad to hear the whistle and get into the changing room to escape the continual Mk Irish threatening closing play onslaught.

The start to the second half was a bit deflated compared to the play of the first. Mk Irish were still getting more of the play but not with the same intensity of the earlier half. However things changed midway in the second half when Mk Irish scored in what looked like a kill the match off goal to make it 2-0. To their credit Potten kept fighting and did not let their heads go down instead creating more chances up front which finally got rewarded making it 2-1. Instead of an Potten equalisee to follow, Mk Irish finally managed to kill the game off in the closing mins of the match to achieve a hard fought and well earnt 3-1 victory. Mk Irish now look almost unbeatable to win the league and we are only approaching the Christmas stage of the season. Brackley Town managed to score at Stockport and honourably discharged themselves from the FA cup with a 3-1 defeat. Exeter City won their FA cup tie to make it to the third round.