A stroll for Romanians

Craig Stewart • Published 21 Jul 2009 14:00

MORTON 1 UNIREA URZICENI 3

European Champions League sides may visit Cappielow again in the future, however it is unlikely they will arrive in the manner that Unirea Urziceni required to do.

Their team bus was involved in an altercation with another vehicle a mile or so from the ground an hour before kick-off and Dan Petrescu and his men had to walk the rest of the way along Port Glasgow Road to Sinclair Street for their friendly encounter.

The upset on the way to the match did not seem to ruffle Unirea and they put in a classy performance against a Morton side, who played with an American trialist in goal and were praised for the manner of their performance by boss David Irons.

Said Irons: "The goals we lost were scrappy, but I thought we played really well against a very good side.

"The first half we kept the ball and, while it was a Champions League side we were playing, you could feel the crowd getting impatient for us to go on the attack.

"Tonight, especially in the first half, was an exercise in keeping our shape and not giving the ball away and I was pleased in how we did that."

Going in at the interval two goals down, Irons took the shackles off his players in the second period and Stevie Masterton fired in a fine goal to reduce the deficit only for a late goal to end all hopes of a fighting draw.

Irons added, "In the second half we upped the pace a bit and scored a good goal. However, we then lost a soft one but I think we can all take heart from the fact that we were never cut open at any stage by the Romanian Champions."

Irons has told his players to remember their exploits from last night saying: "Unirea were a very different side to Crawley and Oxford and gave us a different type of workout.

"It is not very often teams with their ability will come to Cappielow and I have told the players to follow this season's Champions League and look out for their results, knowing that they played very well against them."

Petrescu's side had gone ahead in 15 minutes when Dinu Todoran helped the ball over the line from close range after team-mate Dinu Todoran had knocked a Sorin Frunza left wing cross goalward and they doubled their lead 10 minutes from half-time when Cristian Danalache forced the ball in whilet lying on his back.

Danalache showed great persistence as he had four attempts at getting the ball over the line with the young trialist shot-stopper blotting his copybook, on an otherwise fine appearance, by not ending the danger with an assured clutch of the ball.

Steve Masterton was a man on a mission in the second half and Unirea substitute goalkeeper Daniel Tudor twice had to dive full length to push out efforts from the former Clyde man. Tudor was beaten midway through the second period with a powerful shot from 20 yards by Masterton after a darting run by Jim McAlister had left three visiting defenders in his wake before he passed to his midfield team-mate.

The home side had a chance to equalise eight minutes from time when the ball flashed across the Romanian goal mouth and, despite the joint efforts of substitutes Brian Wake and David MacGregor, along with captain Stewart Greacen, the ball went over the bar.

The Romanians netted a third three minutes before the end when Sorin Paraschiv swept the ball home with his right foot from eight yards with Morton's trialist goalkeeper almost performing heroics with a spectacular attempt at keeping the ball from crossing the line. However, the stand-side assistant correctly adjudged that the ball had gone over the line.

Irons advised after the match that midfielder Kevin Finlayson, who was substituted with 18 minutes to go, had received a sore kick to his achilles but should recover in time for Sunday's trip to Dumbarton on ALBA Challenge Cup duty and that they would not be pursuing any further the opportunity to bring former Scotland and Celtic player Simon Donnelly to the club.

Morton: Trialist, McGuffie, Monti, McManus, Greacen, Masterton, Finlayson (Russell 72), McFarlane (Graham 76), Weatherson (Wake 76), Jenkins (MacGregor 78), McAlister.

Unused subs - Trialist, Grady.

Referee Gary Hilland.

Attendance - 1,059.

Tweet

This article appeared in Greenock Telegraph 21 Jul 09

Return to the main index, get more from this section or browse our Sport archives.

Follow @greenocktele