Two goals from David Dowson saw the Lads run out worthy winners in their penultimate home reserve game of the season winning 3v1 against Blackburn Rovers at Eppleton CW’s Hetton home in the FA Premier Reserve League North.

The Lads lined up with Trevor Carson replacing Marton Fulop in goal and Trev’s Ulster teammate midfielder Robbie Weir filling in at right back. That allowed usual right back, Captain Michael Kay, to slot over to centre of defence to partner usual left back Michael Liddle, leaving usual centre back David Brown to fill in at left back. I hope you’re following all of this. Jamie Chandler and Adam Reed provided the engine room whilst the Nathan Luscombe and Liam O’Mahoney provided the width left and right respectively. French youngster Oumare Tounkara and David Dowson led the line.

A strong Blackburn side included Yildiray Basturk, Lars Jacobsen, Franco Di Santo and young prospect Junior Hoilett and there was a welcome return to the City of Sunderland for Blackburn’s reserve goalkeeper, Bobby Mimms; Am I showing my age there?

The game burst straight into life when in just the second minute the visitors keeper gifted us a goal by trying to clear a back pass only to find the ever industrious David Dowson closing him down and whilst Dowse won’t have known too much about it, he deserves all the credit for doing his job well and collecting yet another ressie goal for the red and whites.

The rest of the half, however, never really got going despite the early breakthrough and became a montage of niggly fouls, wayward finishing and poor clearances from the aforementioned keeper.

On the quarter hour mark, Dowson put Tounkara clean through but he totally mis-kicked his effort and the danger was averted. Tounkara has improved in his time with the club and his link up play and ability to hold the ball appears to be developing, however his shooting needs a lot of work as he’s quickly becoming the reserve team’s version of Kenwyne.

Just before half time, Bomber Brown put in a cross from the left and after an initial headed clearance from Blackburn’s central defence, the ball dropped to Tounkara but his shot would have been a risk to air traffic had the volcano not beaten him to it.

Not much to impress the on-looking, Martyn Waghorn, Neil McDonald or Darlo’s very latest boss, Simon Davey. In fact about the nearest Blackburn got was a poor 25 yard free kick from Junior Holiett who has looked quite impressive in his first team outings this season but was subdued tonight.

H/T 1 - 0

The first notable event of the second period occurred seven minutes in, when Robbie Weir affected something that I’ve never witnessed in all my days visiting Hetton. He managed to sky a shot so high he even cleared the house and the Lei Landi next door. No mean feat, believe me.

The game continued to get more and more niggling but devoid of quality in the last third. An O’Mahoney free kick hit the wall after good work from Luscombe and a Dowson knock down saw Tounkara control the ball well, but alas not his legs as he promptly fell over when in a good position.

He made up for that on 71 minutes when despite giving his marker a substantial head start, he burnt him for pace and as he entered the box the best the defender could do was trip him, giving away a penalty kick. Up stepped O’Mahoney and buried it low and hard to the keeper’s right; 2v0.

Six minutes later and against the run of play, Blackburn did what Cameron, Brown or Clegg will no doubt fail to do over the next five years and halved the deficit. Jacobsen’s long punt looked somewhat hopeful but the ensuing confusion created by Kay, Weir and Carson was even less impressive. The ball went out for a corner kick, the resultant dead ball couldn’t be cleared and O’Connor scuffed one home low, to Carson’s right hand side.

O’Connor was involved in much that Blackburn did, much of it unpleasant and collected a yellow card, soon after the goal, which was long overdue.

The Lads almost threw the game away with less than one of the ninety minutes remaining when an acrobatic, side on scissor kick went wide from Hoilett. There was however still enough time for Dowson to be involved in a clash with O’Connor, the aftermath of which saw the Blackburn player finally collect his second yellow and yet still more time for Dowse to get his second of the match and Sunderland’s third, deep into injury time. Michael Liddle played Dowse an incisive ball down the left hand side and the Bishop lad cut inside and played an accurate pass in to Tounkara. The Frenchman slipped the ball back to Dowse and who slotted it home under the advancing keeper with almost the last touch of the game.

The win came on a day when eight youngsters were named as being released from the club at the end of the season. Four of them started the match namely; Jamie Chandler, David Dowson, David Brown and Liam O’Mahoney, whilst a further two were unused on the bench; Andrew Galer and Michael Misiewicz. Joe Cornforth and Adam Slegg made up the octet the later being particularly unlucky with injury recently. I’d like to thank all of the lads for their efforts at the club but especially to David Dowson for his honest endeavour and excellent attitude and most of all to Jamie Chandler who is a very talented midfielder who finds himself incredibly unlucky to have been only slightly older then the truly exceptional, emerging talents of Jack Colback and Jordan Henderson. I think Jamie will go on to be a solid league player elsewhere and he goes with my best wishes.

Full Time: Sunderland Reserves 3 – 1 Blackburn Rovers Reserves

Sunderland: Carson, Weir, Kay, Liddle, Brown, O’Mahoney (Liam Noble), Chandler, Reed (Hourihane), Dowson, Tounkara, Luscombe,

Subs unused: Misiewicz, Madden, Galer,

Man of the Match: Michael Liddle

Attendance: 384

Dov