The World Cup’s over and the proper football has started. Sunderland kicked off their pre-season programme against a Munster XI at Limerick’s Thomond Park in charity game for the Shane Geoghegan Trust.

The journey over to the Emerald Isle was quite none eventful. A bumpy landing from the Ryanair pilot was about as exciting as it got and we were soon on the ALS bus heading from Dublin, east toward Limerick. As usual the first pub we walked into had Sunderland shirts outnumbering the locals, not that there seemed too many of them about.

The rain that lashed down all through the day eased and we even got a bit of sunshine as Sunderland took to the field with team even that octopus Paul couldn’t have predicted.

Simon Mignolet
Teemu Tainio Nyron Nosworthy Anton Ferdinand George McCartney
David Healy Jack Colback Andy Reid Daryl Murphy
Ryan Noble Kenwyne Jones

Only Bruce will know his ideas for the players in the squad for the forthcoming season and everyone needs a run out to get fitness levels up, but you’d suspect t likes of Tainio, Nosworthy and Murphy are in the shop window, rather than preparing for a new season in a red and white shirt. I certainly don’t think that Healy playing right wing was an experiment with the view to using him against Birmingham.

The first half match report won’t amount to much, cos it was shit. Jack Colback did what Jack Colback does, always making himself available and passing to a red and white shirt and probably was the only person to come out of the first half with any credit, apart from the ‘keeper. The rest seemed to be playing at walking pace with little or no effort. It may be a bit harsh, as it’s the first game back, for charity and it is about fitness and not necessarily results, but a Premier League team, no matter how unfamiliar or “experimental” we should be able to get a few shots in against a team filled with League of Ireland players thrown together for one night only. They couldn’t, but the Munster XI could and John Tierney cut inside from the right and shoot past debutant Mignolet to put the hosts 1-0 up after 12mins. The Belgian later pulled off a cracking save as the ball was destined for the top corner, which would have put Munster two up.

As was suggested the day before, Bruce changed the full team around at half time. At one point I was going to suggest me and the young kid next me pull on the new Tombola sponsored shirt and have a go, cos we couldn’t have done any worse than our lot in the first 45. The second half started with our lineup consisting of…

Carson
Bardsley Turner Kilgallon Liddle
Henderson Richardson Cattermole Malbranque
Campbell Waghorn

This half was a lot brighter. Without battering down the Munster door, we were in control. Carson hardly touched the ball and anything that came near Kilgallon or Turner was dealt with easily enough. Michael Liddle did well at left back and was full of energy although never got quite as far forward as I’ve seen from him previously. Steed was composed on the ball and passed well while Cattermole stampeded around the centre of the park putting the tackles in. We still had to wait until the 75 th minute for the equalizer. Good work by Malbranque down the left set up Waghorn to pull us level. After a promising stint at Leicester, hopefully Waggy will step up his Sunderland career now; him having a good pre season will only increase his chances of playing a more prominent role this season, as Jordon Henderson showed last year. Always nice to see the local lads playing as well.

Waghorn doubled his tally and put us in the lead three minutes later, curling a free kick inside the ‘keepers near post. Hopefully his quality on dead balls will be another positive for us this season, for far too long we haven’t had quality delivery from corners and score from free kicks once in a blue moon.

Cattermole came off with a few minutes to go and Colback got his second run out of the night. He didn’t appear to be injured, so hopefully it was just Steve Bruce easing him into things after spending much of last season fighting injury after injury.

There was just enough time for Waghorn to stretch for a ball in the box, looking to complete his hat-rick. Maybe he wouldn’t have went for it if the match ball wasn’t within his grasp, but the goal didn’t come and he ended up landed awkwardly on the turf and was stretchered off. Hopefully, the injury isn’t too bad and he’ll be back for Darlo on Saturday. Clubs very rarely take risks in pre season when it comes to injuries, so hopefully him exiting early was just a precaution.

The final whistle was greeted with a pitch invasion from the local kids of Limerick. Hopefully they enjoyed the match, there wasn’t much to shout about from a Sunderland point of view, but as the old cliché goes, it’s all about the fitness in pre-season.

Final Score: 2-1

ALS Man of the Match: Whoever in Ireland had the idea to let fans drink Guinness whilst watching the match. Let’s get him over to England.

John Longford

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