Larne 3 H&W Welders 0

Sep 8, 2018 | Archive

LARNE comfortably saw off H&W Welders 3-0 with the Belfast side visibly struggling against an in-form home side. The Inver Men never had to labour for the win with Paul Finnegan, Darren Stuart and Thomas Stewart all getting on the scoresheet on the same night that Fuad Sule made his competitive debut for the club.

With just four minutes gone Larne took the lead as defender Finnegan got his head to a David Scullion corner to put the Inver Reds one ahead. 

On 25, Martin Donnelly crossed from the left into Stuart with the striker’s header being well saved by Ryan Brown. However, Jeff Hughes picked up the loose ball and put it back into the path of Stuart to double Larne’s advantage.

A brilliant move up field just after half an hour culminated with Stuart putting Jeff Hughes in on goal with the Larne midfielder having his strike tipped over by Brown as it headed towards the roof of the net.

Tomas Cosgrove then powered up the left with only the goalkeeper denying him his first goal for the club. Jeff Hughes’ then crashed a header off angle of bar and post to be denied again.

Freshly returned from injury, substitute Stewart added the Inver Men’s third on the hour mark, placing a beautiful side footed strike past Brown into the bottom corner.

With 18 minutes to go, Cosgrove put the ball into man of the match Liam Hassin from the left with the goalkeeper sticking out his foot to stop Man of the Match Hassin’s effort in its tracks.

In an effort to grab a consolation goal, Scott Davidson stepped up to take a free kick for the away side 23 yards out with his free kick deflecting off a defender and going behind on 84 minutes enough to condemn the Welders to their fourth successive defeat.

Larne: Devlin (GK) (c), Finnegan, Kelly, Scullion (Sule), Donnelly, Stuart (Stewart), Tilney, Hassin, McNally, Cosgrove, Hughes (Osei-Bonsu) 

Unused subs: McEleney, Dougherty

H&W Welders: Brown (GK), Hamill, Armstrong (c), Bolton, Spence, Deans, Graham, Morrow, Arthurs, O’Mahony (Davidson), Rainey (Gwiazda) 

Unused subs: Dornan, McIlmail, Whittle

Referee: Diarmuid Harrigan  

Attendance: 888

Larne return to Belfast once again for an away clash with league leaders, Dundela on Saturday 15thSeptember. Kick off at Wilgar Park is 3pm.

Photo: Bill Guiller

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