Nurney Villa AFC 2 – 7 Hanover Harps AFC.

Hanover started the game well and got the opening goal through Ray Darlington after only three minutes for 0-1. Nurney responded when they were awarded a free kick, which hit a post. Hanover continued to press Nurney hard, and they scored another two goals through Scott Dunne, after beating the Nurney offside ‘trap’ and making the score 0-3. Hanover scored another goal on the break to make it 0-4 through Ben Deacon and they were causing Nurney ‘no end of problems’ and they went on to score two more goals to make the score 0-6, but just before the interval, Nurney pulled a goal back and the half-time score was 1 – 6. Hanover started the game pretty much the same as the first period and they got their seventh early in play for 1=7, but Nurney started to settle down and they enjoyed some good spells of pressure and possession, but without really troubling the Hanover keeper. Nurney pulled another goal back on seventy-five minutes to make the score 2-7 and then Nurney went down to ten when they lost a man to a second yellow card, which made their task even harder. Nurney continued to press Hanover and they were again unlucky to hit the post again. Nurney’s second half performance was far better than their first, as they ended up drawing 1-1 and this should give them confidence for future games. It was an outstanding team performance by Hanover, whilst standing out for Nurney were Ben Smyth and Shane Kelly.