Crewe United continued their unbeaten start to the 2011/12 league campaign with a well deserved victory against Laurelvale at Crewe Park. Chris Haggerty and Conor McQuillan provided the goals to seal another win for the Glenavy men. The Reserves had their O’Hara Cup game postponed.
Crewe United 2 Laurelvale 1
Crewe United opened the brighter of the two sides despite having 7 first team regulars unavailable through injury. It wasn’t long before the home side nearly went ahead as Chris Black played a delightful ball into the box from the left and Stephen Bailey rattled the cross bar and volleyed the resulting rebound over the bar.
Crewe kept pressing and McAuley had very little to do in the Crewe goal. The deadlock was eventually broken when Black found Haggerty with a raking cross field pass and the first time sliding volley nestled into the corner of the net.
Crewe had further chances to extend their lead with Pete McCabe and Conor McQuillan both going close as the game should have been out of the reach of Laurelvale but Crewe could not capitalise on their dominance.
Half-time: 1-0
Laurelvale made a change at half time and Crewe came out of the blocks slowly. The visitors looked more dangerous without creating any clear cut chances. Crewe lost the lead however on 65 minutes when a superb run from the Laurelvale midfielder ended in a vicious shot hitting the top corner of McAuleys net.
This seemed to spark Crewe into life again and within 5 minutes Pete McCabe had bamboozled the Laurelvale defence from a short corner and was hauled down in the box. Conor McQuillan took the spot kick and hammered home from 12 yards to restore Crewe’s lead and nearly doubled his tally minutes later when his strike from 20 yards hit the post and rebounded to safety.
Overall Crewe deserved the win which should have been more comfortable than the 2-1 scoreline but the result moves them up to 4th in the table and preserves the unbeaten league record.
Full-time: 2-1
Team: McAuley, Rushton, Gove (c), Creggan, Haggerty, Black, McCabe, Coleman, Bailey, Chisambo, McQuillan. Subs: Reid (For Chisambo 75, Weir, Bingham)
