by Logan Marsh

The Douglas United Dragons’ season has come to a heartbreaking end with a 3-2 loss away to Atherton in the qualifying final on Friday night.

In a topsy-turvy clash the Dragons can count themselves unlucky not to have made it through to the final having hit the post on three separate occasions and dominating the entire first half and parts of the second.

However, they will be left rueing the way they started both halves, conceding goals very early in the match and again after the interval.

The match had not even got up to speed when the Dragons gave away a free kick in a fairly innocuous area of the pitch, however the resulting kick was headed towards goal by an Atherton player and somehow snuck past keeper, Gary Fitzgerald, at the near post leaving the Dragons players rather shell-shocked to say the least.

The result was not instantaneous but once the Dragons managed to get a foothold on the match they pinned the opposition into their own half creating a number of good chances through intelligent play from left winger, Chris Nielsen, the ever reliable Neil Burcombe, and the pace and direct running of frontmen Matt Smith and John Raffaele.

Although firmly on top the Dragons could have been forgiven for thinking it was not going to be their night. From a right wing corner and after a bit of a goal mouth scramble, Smith managed to turn the ball goalwards only to see his shot hit the post, roll along the goal line and onto the other post before bouncing back into play and being cleared for a corner.

From the resulting corner captain Logan Marsh steered a free header wide of the post with the goal at his mercy.

But football is a funny game and just when it looked like Atherton may have survived the breakthrough came. After a good period of possession football Burcombe released Marsh down the left with the fullback racing 60 yards to pull the ball back for Chris Nielsen whose shot found its way through to top scorer Raffaele who coolly slotted home with his right foot to put the Dragons back on level terms.

Spurred on by their equaliser, the Dragons continued to assert their dominance. From another Matt Smith corner Marsh again found himself unmarked and this time directed his header goalwards only to see it be deflected off not one, but two Atherton players and onto the join of post and crossbar and out for a corner.

Moments later a ball into the box was sliced by and Atherton defended onto the same post and out for yet another corner leaving the Dragons players, bench and travelling supporters wondering how they were not ahead.

The halftime message was that the next goal was to be crucial and so it proved to be. From the kickoff the ball was punted aimlessly forward by an Atherton player but a resulting mix up in the Dragons defence allowed the opposition to sneak in and restore the Atherton lead after just five seconds of the second half.

Again the Dragons resolved to work themselves back into the game but found the opposition more organised and composed than in the first half and chances harder to come by.

And the task became even greater on 65 minutes when a cross eluded the Dragons defence and was tapped home at the far post leaving a mountain to climb.

Still the players responded and threw everything at Atherton creating a number of chances and winning multiple corners. When coach Nick Tither rose to head home in the 82nd minute the Dragons had the lifeline they needed.

The resulting ten minutes saw the Dragons throw everything they had at the opposition but unfortunately they still came up just short leaving them to reflect on the costly way they had started both halves.  

Man of the Match went to Chris Nielsen for a strong performance out wide on the left hand side of midfield.

The Dragons players and staff would like to thank all the supporters who travelled to Atherton to cheer them on and indeed everyone who attended any fixture this season.