Dollingstown fall to first league defeat

Valley Rangers went into the fixture with four players missing but they still managed to come away with maximum points and inflict the first league defeat of the season on Dollingstown.

Dollinstown were guilty of some defensive lapses and were punished on 15 minutes when they failed to cut out a cross from the right-wing and the ball bounced kindly for Valley to open the scoring.

Indeed only for Dollingstown keeper, Croft, they could have been two down on 20 minutes

Then, on 38 minutes, another failure to simply clear their lines resulted in Valley going 2-0 up thanks to a superb strike into the top corner

Dollingstown pulled a goal back on 51 minutes when leading scorer Duke headed in from a Gray cross but a minute later they were punished once again for allowing Valley a free header at the near post from a corner kick.

Manager Duke then correctly made a triple substitution with Clark, Gray and Harrison being replaced by Hand, Norton and Keegan in an effort to inject more energy into the team

This had the desired effect with more aggression but despite the changes they failed to create any clear-cut opportunities and suffered a disappointing first league defeat of the season

Dollingstown F.C. would like to thank Stanley Emerson & Sons Limited for sponsoring the match