MATCH REPORT; Fairfield 2 Madison 0

Yet another bitter defeat for the Celts this weekend. This time the loss was to their fellow hooped rivals Fairfield GAC. On a hot and increasingly humid day the Madison team just wilted and to be fair Fairfield were up for the game and by far the better team. They attacked the Celts right from the beginning and if it wasn't for the heroics of Alex in goal and La Boca and Jodingo!! at the back we could have been onto a hiding. Though most of the opening twenty minutes of the game the Celts could not get hold of the ball and when they did they gave it away cheaply. In contrast, the home team were fast and could move the ball around their team with ease. They had a few simple but very effective tactics that basically involved lobbing the ball down the left or right wing and letting their fast strikers out run the Madison backs. Unfortunately that tactic was all that was needed for them to score their first goal. A distracted Celtic team, arguing for a foul with the ref, allowed the Fairfield team to hit the ball straight down the middle of the field to their fastest forward. He outstripped the last defender and coolly slotted the ball into the net. The most frustrating part of the game for Celtic in this first half was their inability to read the offside trap. At one point almost every forward pass was adjudged to have found a Celtic player in an offside position. Unfortunately, to this observer at least, the linesman got it right about 90% of the time. It's something that has to be fixed and a really basic problem for a forward line to have.
The second half was marginally better as the Celts got more of the ball and threatened the opposition goal a bit more but Fairfield still looked the most likely to get the next goal. And that they did, with the same tactic of lobbing the ball over the back line and allowing a player to burst through on goal giving Alex no chance. After going two nil down the Celts played their best football, hitting the post and coming close a few times. But way too many times they had to rely on a last minute tackle by La Boca or a great save by Alex to save further humiliation. The last five minutes or so got a bit rough as both teams started to put in some meaty challenges. Fairfield saw the game out and got a well deserved three points. The Celts really need to come up with some smarter tactics than they are currently deploying if they want to gather any more points in this league.

Man of the Match; great play by Jodingo!! and Alex throughout the game really had them as potential MOM's but the award goes to La Boca for his many last minute tackles and break up play