MM third away game in a row ended with the points being shared with there promoted rivals on Sunday morning. The match was only 10 mins old when MM should have taken the lead with some good passing down the right hand side, but the final ball across the box was marginally in front of the unmarked Johnny King at the back post. Both sides seemed to be cancelling each other out in the middle of the park with the MM pair working very hard. With 10 mins to go in the first half Austin Skelly created a great chance for himself but slid the ball narrowly outside the post. There was also a fine save again by Vlad the former MM keeper from a firm shot by Skelly from outside the box.
The second half commenced with Phoenix starting to exert a bit of pressure, with the former league of Ireland star Mark Kenny at the forefront. With only five mines gone of the half Glen Campbell flashed a brilliant header towards the goal from about 10 yards Paddy Whelan seemed to see it late but stretched out a hand and pushed the header on to the inside of the post, the ball ended up rolling across the goal and was cleared by Sean Kelly. The warning was not heeded and within 10 mins Phoenix had taken the lead with a simple ball over the top catching Merrion square, there was a legitimate offside shout as Glen Campbell did look marginally offside but he used his pace a cool finishing to lift the ball over the onrushing Paddy Whelan for the opening goal.
For the second match in a week Merrion needed a goal from the opposition to get them really firing, they started to pile the pressure on phoenix which yielded the equaliser. With about 15 mins to go a neat header by Brendan Markey into the path of the onrushing Austin Skelly left the centre forward with just the keeper to beat which he obliged with a powerful shot below the keeper. The rest of the half was dominated by MM as they chased the winner. However a goal never materialised as some resolute defending ensured a battling phoenix shared the points.
There were a few performances to recommend this week with another very solid display by James Timmons and the ever reliable Brendan Markey, but the man of the match award goes to Austin Skelly (as per above) who constantly looked very dangerous and caused phoenix a lot of problems on the day.
