Windmill progress in Irish Cup knocking out Warrenpoint

Windmill Stars booked their place in the second Round of the Clearer Water Irish Cup with a 2-1 victory over Warrenpoint Town in Milltown on Saturday much to the delight of manger Gareth White.

“They're only a league ahead of us but still it was a free hit for us,” White told the Newry Reporter after the game.

“I told the boys to just go out and enjoy themselves and just play football but they were unbelievable, just unbelievable. The Point is a very good side and the set-up around here is great so it's a brilliant day for us – the so-called wee pub team.”

A goal from the pacey young player Kian McCaughey had the Stars on the front foot with just seven minutes on the clock. Windmill played the better football in the first half and while both sides had the ball in the net before half-time, Michael Leddy hitting the target for the hosts, and Brendan Tumilty for the visitors, neither goal counted with off-side given and it remained 1-0 at the break.

Again Leddy had the ball in the net at the start of the second half but the goal was ruled out for off-side and with that Windmill broke and sub Dean Morgan scored their second of the day.

Warrenpoint improved immensely after the interval and pressed hard to get back in the game but once more a goal was disallowed for off-side

Conall Murray pulled one goal back on 75 minutes but Windmill held firm, and with appeals by Warrenpoint for a handball in the box waved away late on, the visitors kept their nerve and denied the home side the equaliser.

“It was probably the one game where I was thinking we mightn't win.,” admitted White who agreed that it was good to get the early goal which kept Warrenpoint on the back foot.

“I think we played the better football in the first half and in the second half they were more on top, but Kian's first goal was brilliant. I don't know if the second that was blown for offside was, but then they had two disallowed for off-side so maybe it was evened up.

Then we got the second goal, against the run of play I thought, but the boys just dug in after that.”

White also admitted that John-Joe Maguire did handle the ball late in the game.

“I'm not sure what he was trying to do. It was a handball but it was definitely outside the box so it wouldn't have been a penalty,” he felt.

“But we're absolutely delighted. Into the second round of the Irish Cup. When I saw the draw I thought it could have been handier, but this is it, these are the games the boys want to play in against teams like these.”

The manager and former player has a good mixture of youth and experience on the team that he's happy with - the likes of Joe McLaughlin and Ruairi Devlin and of course the evergreen Maguire. “He's a robot, “ he said with a laugh. “He even looks like he's getting younger.

“We knew we had to rebuild in the sense where our team was getting a wee bit older and we gradually got players in and the players we got are super. We have a good combination where we can play players in different positions and the boys are buying into it which is what I wanted them to do. When you ask them to play somewhere they don't huff about it, they just go and do it. So, it's looking positive for us at the minute and hopefully it maintains. It's only three games into the season so we'll not get too carried away.”

Warrenpoint manager Gary Boyle, who may well have been disgruntled with some of the decisions on Saturday, was making no excuses.

“We can probably blame a lot of things today, but first and foremost we've got to look at ourselves, and if we're being completely honest it wasn't good enough today,” said Boyle.

“We fell flat in our first competitive game after we thought we'd built something in pre-season. Fair play to Windmill, they came full of guts and determination and got the first goal and really sort of pinned us back and drove into the game and gave themselves something to hold onto.”

But in terms of the decisions Boyle, who received a yellow card for protesting at one point, felt many were wrong but he had some sympathy for referee Neil Sinton.

“I need to be careful what I say but I've never, ever seen as many penalty shouts or four offside goals in a game of football – three for ourselves and one for Windmill. I don't know, I haven't seen it back, but I think all four of them were goals. We had three shouts for a penalty and I'm not in any way detracting from our level of performance, but if it's giving them oxygen and something to hold onto, every decision that's sort of perceived to go against us feeds that.

“The man in the middle is on his own with no assistance so it's really, really tough but it felt like all four goals were onside. It's a thankless job being in the middle and it's even more difficult when you're on your own with no linesmen.”

Regardless, Boyle agrees that had his side worked as hard in the first half as they did in the second it could have been a different result.

“We were outworked and that's something that we'll not stand for. Our work-rate simply wasn't good enough. Windmill were the first to the first ball and first to the second ball. That's something that we tried to address at half-time but it shouldn't have taken a half like that to address it. We didn't get to the pace of the game and it's something that we need to work harder at to try to get the results that we all want.”

For full match report see this week’s Newry Reporter in shops Wednesday August 14