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eircom National League First Division

Date	09/10/2001	Trevor Berry makes his debut
Score (Blues First)	1 - 3
Venue	Whitehall, Dublin
Kick Off	7.45 PM
Attendance	120
Weather	Bright evening
Referee	D. Tomney
Goal Scorers	D. Whittle (pen)
Cards	Yellow: Moore, Breen
Pitch	Great surface

After two good performances against Limerick and Kilkenny we traveled in hope to the capital on Tuesday night of another Blues win to lift us into the top four. Utter frustration, was what we felt on a long journey home, as the Blues failed to perform in Whitehall.

We started slowly and gave The Vikings (new nickname) all the pitch and the ball for the first 20 minutes. We just could not get going and they overran us in midfield and defended with ease. After having a couple of lucky escapes big Eric received a pass in the opposition half and for the first time since last season he turned and ran at the home defence and was brought down just inside the box. A penalty was given by the Dublin referee(pictured right), with no complaints from either side David Whittle stood up and blasted the ball home. Whittle then ran to the corner flag to celebrate as the forty or so Blues fans stood cheering at the halfway line, why he refused to celebrate near us is anybobys guess? for the next 20 minutes we took over the running of a scrappy game as The Vikings lost heart after going one down. We when in a half time 1 up without playing well, but felt confident that we could perform better in the second half.

A lot of shouting was heard coming out of the Dublin City dressing room at the interval as John McDonnell had a go at his players for a below par performance, maybe PP should have done the same. In the second half we were dreadful, bloody awful actually. O'Brien missed a simple header from a ball just hoofed forward from the home defence and bang the game was all square and the Blue's were on the back foot. After seeing this McDonnell moved Tony Sheridan out left wing and he caused us pain from here on in as he found space and time. A long range shot from inside the center circle seemed to catch Binder off his line but luckily him the ball hit the crossbar and landed in the penalty area where Whittle launched himself to deny Nataro, an easy tap in.

From the resulting corner, which wasn't cleared properly by the Blues defence, a low shot found the back of the net as players scrambled around the the goal mouth. With minutes remaining David Moore was taken off and big Bredan was introduced as a third attacker, but City again scored from a corner as Moores position on the post was not taken up and a soft header trickled into the net. To be fair to Dublin City they were the better team on the day and deserved their victory over a poor Waterford team. Binder left poses for snap for Tubbritt.net

Interesting enough Trevor Berry, was introduced early in the second half, but came on in place of Eric Bradley(right, joins us in the stand, not injured) up front. Talking to Tricky (Trevor's nickname), at half time he informed me that he plays either right or left wing but can play up front if needed. Surely if this is the case PP should have taken Kevin Whittle off, who has not played well of late, put Wayne Fitzgerald in the middle and put our new (my wish) hero wide on the left. Anyway it probably would not have made much of a difference on a night best forgotten in our capital city.