Dergview v Lisburn Distillery
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For the third season in a row Lisburn Distillery travelled to Darragh Park on a Tuesday night to face a Dergview side, who like ourselves had won their opening league game of the season against Banbridge.

It was worth noting beforehand that Christopher McDowell and Wesley Ferguson’s side had not played in the 10 days since that Banbridge game, due to receiving a bye in the National Conference Cup and also not having any Regional Cup involvement the previous weekend.

Whites manager, Lee Forsythe, made some changes to his side; at least one of which was enforced due to Darrin Hill serving a one game ban due to his sending off against Shankill United at the weekend, he was replaced in the team by captain Jordan Morrison who had missed the aforementioned Shankill match. Josh McKee returned to the side in place of Logan Beattie and Bradley Porter started having missed the weekend’s game due to his partner giving birth to twin girls, Cali and Peyton, and once again our congratulations to the new parents. New signing from Knockbreda, Adam Patterson, began life at Distillery on the bench.

The visitors, debuting our new Netherlands like away kit, started the game and both sides had sniffs of goals early on but for Distillery Porter was unable to generate enough power behind his header to seriously test Dylan Doherty and at the other end it looked like Russell had beaten the Whites defence but Morrison recovered to make a crucial challenge.

Dergview did take the lead in the opening 10 minutes though and it was through Russell, when his strike from outside the box took a deflection and Distillery ‘keeper Johnny Holland was powerless to do much as the ball looped over him and into the goal.

The home should have doubled their lead in the 16th minute when Corey McLaughlin cut in from the Dergview left and beat the Distillery defence but with only Holland in front of him and half the goal gaping he opted to try and pass the ball into the net and the lack of power allowed Morrison to come to the rescue once again by clearing off the line. It may have crossed one or two people’s minds, least of all McLaughlin’s, that this could well be a moment we would look back on later in the game.

After this Leon Lavery went for goal with a 25 yard free kick but the ball comfortably cleared the Dergview crossbar and at the other end Holland made a strong save low to his left from a Shea Devlin effort after the Distillery defence stopped waiting for an offside flag that, correctly, never came; once again the Dergview player may feel he could have done better with this opportunity.

Whilst the home side had enjoyed the better chances up to this point, the Whites were getting the ball wide whenever possible and getting crosses into the opposition box but things just did not seem to be falling our way. Opportunity did present itself just before the half hour mark when Callum Dougan chased a ball beyond the Dergview defence into the penalty area, Doherty came off his line but got all of the man and none of the ball and in one of the easier decisions he’ll likely make all season referee Gary Thompson showed little hesitation in pointing to the spot. Morrison made clear his intent to take the responsibility himself right away and after a short delay as a Dergview player received some treatment the Distillery captain blasted the ball past Doherty and equalised and in doing so continued the trend of he or his centre back partner, Josh Cahoon, scoring in every game so far this season.

Having got themselves back into the game the Whites then fell behind a little less than 10 minutes later when Russell once again beat the offside trap but this time there was to be no recovery as the big man rounded Holland and slotted home to put Dergview back in front.

With three minutes to go until the break Forsythe’s side got their second equaliser of the game when a Porter throw in from the right was only partially cleared and Cahoon did well to keep the ball alive before Jay Borrill, who had entered the pitch 10 minutes earlier in place of the injured Aaron Cochrane, slammed in his first goal for the club on his league debut.

In the last minute of normal time of the first half, there was time for a little more drama when Josh McKee had the ball in the back of the Dergview net but the Distillery celebrations were cut short by the offside flag and the sides went in level after the opening 45 minutes.

After an action packed first half the opening stages of the second gave both sets of supporters an extended opportunity to catch their breath, the only real talking point of note was Dergview’s first half substitute Dylan McGavigan becoming the game’s first booking after a foul on Lavery.

With 66 minutes on the clock Nathan Clarke managed to get on the end of a McKee flick on having drifted in from the left but the wide man did not have enough room to get the ball past Doherty and in any case the offside flag had already been raised. A few minutes after this Dean Lewis found Dougan with an expert cross from the right but the number nine just could not get the ball under his control and then another Distillery throw in, this time from the left, was again not fully cleared but unfortunately Morrison was less accurate this time with his effort going over the bar. The Whites were definitely starting to take the upper hand in the game though.

In the 76th minute Morrison was involved again when Lavery’s cross from a free kick found him having escaped the attentions of his marker but the big defender could not keep his header down and the drifted over the crossbar for a goal kick.

At this stage there was a sense that it was not if but when the Whites would take the lead but football is a funny old game and in a cruel twist of irony it was Dergview who took the lead in the 77th minute though substitute Aaron McGurk.

With 10 minutes to go Lavery delivered another inviting corner into the home sides box but it was just out of reach of Morrison and Cahoon respectively who would have surely only needed the deftest of touches to send the ball past Doherty. Tempers flared slightly a minute later when yet another Lavery corner was sent into the Dergview penalty area but the referee blew his whistle wanting a word with some players about the amount of grappling going on. The Distillery management clearly made it known they felt there was a case for a second penalty, though it seemed Thompson had blown up just milliseconds before Lavery had taken the corner, and Whites First Team Coach Kirk Keery was added to the referee’s notebook; joining Porter who had found himself in the referee’s bad books earlier.

Distillery continued to lay siege to the Dergview goal but it would have to be said that for all their efforts, Doherty remained largely untested and it was the home side who perhaps came closest to doubling their lead when McGavigan cut in from the home sides left and beat the visiting defence but fired his final shot just a whisker too high.

As with the first half; there was time for one last bit of drama in added time when Lewis went down in the Dergview penalty area and the eyes of everyone in the ground turned to Thompson but the referee awarded the free kick to the home side and Lewis became the third Distillery name in the officials’ notebook, having clearly been adjudged by the referee to have went down too easily.

As it was the Whites perfect start to the season came to an end in a game that the side looked well worth at least a point in and we made the long journey home with nothing; as was the case on those two previous visits to Darragh Park, which has not been a happy hunting ground of late for Distillery. There’s little time for licking our wounds though as we go again on Friday night in an away game against St James Swifts, again in the National Conference League.