Friendly: PSNI 1-1 Ards
19th January 2008

Ards manager Tommy Kincaid decided to skip this game, preferring instead to have at look at Ards' next two league opponents playing each other in Coagh, and when he receives a report from his number two Justin McBride, he'll be very glad he did.

Neither side seemed terribly interested during any of the ninety excruciating minutes, and once all the scoring had been wrapped by the 17th minute there was little any of the supporters could do but wait.

A number of changes in the Ards line-up then, some by design, some enforced as both Aaron McKee and David Cully sat out with injury. Johnny Cleary was started at left-back and Mark Drysdale at right, with Walsh and Roy the two wingmen. Up front were Ryan Hyland and Mark Parker.

The game was only four minutes old when a casual ball by Newberry was intercepted and PSNI broke away on the right side of the Ards box. A short pass inside found Graeme Arthur and he got his foot to the ball ahead of Darren Nixon to find the net. Ards showed some decent play after that with some dogged work by Roy seeing him fight his way along the right side to get a cross over that was cleared away by the home defence. On 11 minutes a well struck drive by Newberry was confidently stopped by the police goalkeeper.

On 17 minutes Newberry hit another attempted drive at goal that was charged out by a defender only as far as Drysdale. His lofted ball over the top of the defence found Mark Parker and he headed past the keeper to level the scores. A rare bright point of the first half followed on 25 minutes when Roy did excellently to evade a number of challenges on his way through the PSNI midfield and defence to get a shot in that was just stopped by the keeper's outstretched leg.

Into the second half and Andy McDonald in the Ards goal became the busiest man on the field when he had to make a number of close range saves that undoubtedly kept Ards in the match. On 51 minutes Drysdale conspired to put Parker away again but after rounding the goalkeeper, the former Linfield striker struck his shot against the near post.

PSNI had fielded four former Ards players in Andy Massey, Scott McCrory, Kris Hunter and Chris Towell and the latter made inroads on the Ards goal on the hour mark only for his shot to skim the crossbar.

Chances were becoming few and far between and each side now made the obligatory rash of substitutions - for Ards, James Wilson made his return to the side, following his recent wedding. No more than a couple of half chances remained for Ards; Roy fired a shot from midfield past an upright and then Newberry had similar luck on 77 minutes when his drilled effort flew wide also.

A pretty poor work-out for either side it must be said and but for a few heroic moments from Andy McDonald, Ards might have found themselves on the end of a bad result. On the basis of things the £3 entry fee seemed hard to justify.

ardsfc.co.uk