Clara lose out to leaders as late goals give Willow victory

Despite scoring an equaliser early in the second half, Clara Town came away from this trip to Athlone empty handed last Sunday - as Willow Park wrapped up victory with two goals in the final ten minutes. In truth, the hosts fully deserved their victory, but a sloppy start to the second half saw them concede an equaliser only for Willow to get themselves out of jail with those two late goals. Alan Kelly had equalised for Clara after 47 minutes.Clara will be bitterly disappointed to have lost, having had the greater need for the three points than Willow Park. The result leaves Clara in second place of the Senior Division table, three points behind Willow, who also have three games in hand on the Co Offaly side. The game failed to produce the exciting and expansive football that everyone had hoped for and expected; in fact, it turned out to be a very scrappy game. The lack of flow was largely down to the extreme passion of both sets of players, which at times threatened to get out of hand and, as a result, the game experienced many breaks in play. Willow Park came out brimming with confidence and made all of the early running. During the opening 10 minutes, they created several goalscoring chances but failed to take any of them. With only 4 minutes gone, Aiden Hyland produced a long run to the edge of the Clara box where he struck a low effort, but the ball flew straight into the arms of "keeper James Kinahan. Moments later, Hyland again found himself in the thick of the action when he got on the end of a Mark McConnell cross, but he could only direct his header the wrong side of the right post. With 9 minutes played it was Willow"s other Hyland, Colly, who came close to edging his side in front, after a neat through ball by Benny McGuinness, but the Willow striker struck the ball into the side netting. Clara had no answer to the early threat that Willow were posing towards their goal, but managed to survive due to the poor finishing and the bad luck of the hosts. Both sets of supporters were becoming visibly disheartened by their team"s poor showing, but, with 15 minutes gone, the Willow Park crowd were given something to smile about when their side managed to take the lead. The goal was as a scrappy one, going with the trend of the previous 15 minutes. Alan Kelly took a corner from the right but completely scuffed his effort towards the near post; nevertheless, Colly Hyland reacted quickest and managed to get to the ball in time to flick it into the goal past James Kinahan and made it 1-0 to Willow. This setback seemed to spark Clara into life and, only moments after going behind, they very nearly wiped out Willow Park"s lead; in fact, they thought they had done so. With 18 minutes gone, Willow "keeper Ian Bolger carelessly fumbled a long range Clara free kick which Clara"s Thomas Quinn then pounced upon and tapped the loose ball into the goal - however, he was adjudged to have used his arm in the process and so the goal was disallowed. The game became all the more scrappy as the half wore on, with neither side able to create many scoring opportunities. Clara began the second half with greater determination and a clearer understanding of their task. They appeared much more organised in the early stages and before long put their tactical rethink into play, shocking Willow with an unexpected equalising goal. Scott Brady switched the ball across to Alan Kelly marginally inside the box on the right, and Kelly struck a powerful effort across the goal which saw the ball squeeze inside the post to make it 1-1 after 47 minutes. Willow struggled to adjust to Clara"s rejuvenation and their pursuit of a speedy turnaround failed. Despite trying everything to retake the lead, their poor shooting or misplaced final ball continued to let them down. On the hour mark, the hosts should have once again edged in front when Mark McConnell connected with an Aiden Hyland long ball but he misdirected his header wide. With the game slowly but surely drawing to a close in what seemed a bitterly disappointing finish, the game unexpectedly sparked into life as Willow Park created a goal out of nothing. Both sets of players seemed to be simply going through the motions until Colly Hyland collected a loose ball and darted for the Clara goal. His determination carried him all the way to his desired destination and, with Aiden Hyland in support, he simply switched the ball across to the goal hungry frontman, who tapped the ball into the net to give Willow a 2-1 lead with only 7 minutes of normal time remaining. The visitors simply had to attack the Willow goal if they were to claim anything from this match, but doing so brought the risk of further Willow goals. The visitors did go all out to try and rescue a point but their efforts failed and Willow extended their margin of victory to two goals in injury-time, Benny McGuinness adding his name to the scoresheet after being set up by Alan Kelly. Clara: 1. James Kinahan, 2. Sean Moran, 3. Damien Kelly (12. Dean Minnock, 65 mins), 4. Derek Coughlan, 5. Peter Flanagan, 6. Gary Fitzpatrick, 7. Alan Kelly, 8. Thomas Quinn, 9. Gary Devine, 10. Scott Brady, 11. Mark Kelly. Subs (not used) - 13. Pa Smith, 14. Keith Kavanagh. Willow Park: 1. Ian Bolger, 2. Mark Rigney, 3. Alan Kelly, 4. Robbie Shine, 5. James Mullally, 6. Gary McHugh, 7. Mark McConnell (13. Peter Sherlock, 85 mins), 8. Mark Nicholson, 9. Colly Hyland, 10. Benny McGuinness, 11. Aiden Hyland. Subs (not used): 12. Martin McConnell, 14. Earl Gaylard, 15. Conor Frawley, 16. Sean Brennan.