Irish Cup quarter final qualifier.
Warrenpoint Town 2 0 Queen;s University
Monday 10th February.
Report By Sean Forsythe.
Warrenpoint Town progressed to the Quarter Finals of the Irish Cup with an accomplished performance in their 2-0 win over Queen’s University on Monday night. The result marks the first time the Point have reached the Quarter Finals of the Irish Cup since the 2016/17 season.
Warrenpoint will be hoping to progress further on this occasion as they will face Larne Tech with the Amateur League side enjoying a good cup run so far this year. They will be relieved to have overcome this stern test against a Queen’s side who have a good pedigree in this competition having reached the semi-final stage in 2013-14.
Warrenpoint had a short turnaround for this game having been beaten 5-0 by Glentoran on Saturday. This was because the game had to be rearranged when the initial game was postponed with the pitch at Warrenpoint was frozen on February 2nd.
The result continues a fine run of form for Warrenpoint who have only been beaten by Linfield and Glentoran since the start of the year. This run included a 2-0 win against local rivals Newry City.
These wins have seen them move away from the bottom two places of the league as they are now 11 points clear of Newry City who are second bottom with Warrenpoint also having a game in hand over their rivals.
In an entertaining game, Warrenpoint took the lead on 36 minutes after a low cross in reached Phillip Donnelly who turned and finished into the bottom left corner.
Warrenpoint doubled their advantage 7 minutes into the second half. On this occasion in the 52nd minute, a low-driven free kick into the box caused panic with Eamonn Scannell being adjudged to have kicked the final ball into the back of the net.
Despite the best effort of Queen’s, Warrenpoint were able to hold onto their clean sheet and with it the win. Queen’s had several chances to score and almost scored a memorable free kick into the top right hand corner from roughly 25 yards on the right which unfortunately hit the crossbar to preserve the clean sheet for Warrenpoint.
Warrenpoint clung onto the win and will now go on to face Larne at home on Saturday the 2nd of March. Their next match comes in the league this Friday night as they travel to face Dungannon Swifts.
