Stedfast glory night
May 10th 1999. Evening Herald by Jimmy Geoghegan.
Stedfast United 3 - Strand United 0
Revenge was sweet for classy Stedfast United aside the challenge of Premiership rivals Strand to win
the Progressive Life Cup final at Dalymount Park on Tuesday evening last. Earlier in the season Strand
beat Stedfast 3-1 in the league but this time the tables were turned - and in a very convincing manner.
Highly motivated Stedfast quickly imposed themselves on the game and by the time man-of-the-match Karl
Walsh neatly tucked the ball into the corner of the net after 19 minutes - following a clever pass by
Niall Little - it was clear they were the team on form. Little himself was on hand to head in the second
five minutes later as Stedfast upped the tempo and just nine minutes into the second-half Gary Whyte
grabbed a third with a sweetly taken shot.
UPPERHAND
"We had identified Strand's midfield as very important to them and we went out to get the upperhand in
that area and we managed to do that" said Stedfast manager Billy Long. For Strand this was thoroughly
forgettable occasion as everything they tried went wrong. Their best chance of getting a foothold in
the game came just before half-time when John Dandy hit a penalty kick against the crossbar. Shortly
before that striker Leslie Knott also hit the bar with a stinging shot from the edge of the box and in
the second-half Stedfast keeper Derrick Dunne did well to save from sub Pat Staunton. Otherwise below
par Strand rarely looked like scoring.
DISSENT
And a night of misery was made complete for Strand when they had Robbie Moore sent off for dissent late
in the game as tempers flaired. "We never got going and in the end we got what we deserved. We hit the
crossbar twice but apart from that we were very disappointing" said Strand boss Philip Crowe.
STEDFAST
: Derrick Dunne, Ken O'Reily, Eugene Long, Joe Reynolds, Paul Geraghty,
Robert Donelly, Kevin Norris, Niall Little, Gary Whyte, Robert Doyle, Karl Walsh.
Subs : Brendan Byrne for Donnelly, Robert Giltrap for Whyte, Paul Nugent for Giltrap, John Garvan, Hubert McCann.
