A 2nd outing for the Under 16s brought a ‘road trip’ all the way to Renfrew.

The boys were a little miffed to arrive at the bumpy grass pitch and find that there were no nets in the goals – no matter, let’s play football!

The usual fluid passing, moving and general upbeat temp were missing to a large degree for much of the first half and it was no real surprise that Renfrew scored 2 goals.

A rally towards the end of the first half and a mazy run culminated in a fine solo goal for Lewis Banaghan.  This seemed to help to raise the boys energy levels and a little more composure in from of goal could have seen them go into the break level.

The 2nd half started much as the first had begun – which spelt trouble for Johnstone.  Again, the energy levels that are usually apparent were missing and Renfrew High were soon 4 – 1 with the job looking done.

However, once more the boys rallied with Harvey Brown commanding in the middle of the park as usual and goals from Dylan Miller and a fine long range strike from Cameron Coughtrie brought the score to 4 -3 and left the match on a knife edge.

Harvey Brown brought a fine save from the Renfrew keeper as the seconds ticked away and unfortunately the final whistle sounded soon after.

On the balance of play, a deserved win for Renfrew but Johnstone will know that they can do better and will look to show this in the next game.

A debut substitute performance for Matthew Stewart brought an eager performance with the energy that hopefully the whole team will be able to show in the next match.

2 games down and 1 win and 1 defeat, but as the league table shows it’s all to play for with Renfrew and Glennifer playing out a draw in their last match.

League Table

Johnstone v St Benedict’s 21/9/15

The first game of the league season for the ever-keen squad saw a home tie and a ‘derby’ against St. Benedict’s at the sports hub.

First issue – deal with the kit clash.  Both teams in green meant a mad scramble to find an alternative.  The blue kit was unearthed, but the team are clearly facing  a sock crisis for the season.  An arrangement of green, blue, black and dark blue rugby socks was not ideal, but game on nevertheless.

The first 20 minutes saw the ball permanently in the St Benedict’s half of the field.  Some good individual play from Johnstone but work to be done on passing, movement and shooting meant that a series of early chances were missed.  Greg Steven hit the post and Daniel Smith put  a shot narrowly past, but both boys will feel that they should have scored.

However, a goal duly arrived and there was a bit of fortune in it, with the ball more or less bouncing off Steven Buchanan into the net.

A somewhat lucky goal but richly deserved on the balance of play.

Shortly afterwards Irwin Gray had  his first touch of the ball to take a bye kick.  His next touch was to lift the ball from the back of the net as St Benedict’s scored with their first direct shot at goal.

1-1 at half time didn’t tell the full story of what was a generally dominant performance from Johnstone.

Unfortunately, by this stage Steven Buchanan had been taken off and gone to hospital with a broken shoulder bone.  As ever, Steven made no great fuss of this bad injury and hopefully he’ll be fully recovered as soon as possible.

Into the 2nd half and Lewis Banaghan soon made it 2-1.

A better performance from St Benedicts this half and they managed to equalise again for 2-2.

However, the Johnstone boys kept battling and substitute Finlay Ross made it 3-2, with a swift follow up from Daniel Smith meaning the final score was 4 -2 in favour of Johnstone High.

A broken collar bone and a sprained ankle for Greg Steven in a game that was played in a very fair spirit provided the down side to a good opening to the season.

Next up is Glennifer away on Tuesday 29th.

See the league table here.