Cup draw for Distillery

It wasn’t long before the first talking point of the match as on five minutes Ashton McDermott beat Carl McConville only for McConville to make an excellent recovery just in time to knock it out for the first corner of the match.

From the resulting corner a goalmouth scramble ensued, with Lukasz Adamczyk just being denied in the nick of time.

Ben Browne had the home side’s first chance on ten minutes as his teasing cross was very well dealt with by PSNI keeper Keith Wilson who prevented recent signing Stephen Doyle from getting his first goal for the hosts.

Wilson then made a fantastic save on twelve minutes and indeed it was Browne troubling him once again as his shot deflected off the surface and looked to be heading for the top corner but Wilson denied him with a fine reaction save.

The visitors then nearly went one up as a powerful strike at goal from John-Brendan Dobbin forced Whites ‘keeper Ryan McBride to parry away from the packed out danger zone.

Browne was once again denied by Wilson as his long range effort was well held by the inform goalkeeper.

The Whites produced a passage of neat passing on thirty five minutes which allowed Chris Kingsberry to find a gap in the defence his pass finding Doyle but on this occasion he was deemed by the officials to be in a offside position much to the disbelief of the Distillery coaching staff.

Tommy Kincaid made the first change at halftime bringing off Glen Upton and replacing him with Mark Lyons.

Controversy followed as Whites ‘keeper McBride handled outside his area with the visitors on the attack. A red card was expected the referee deemed that as he was not the last man that he would be awarded a yellow.

Adamczyk appeared to be fortunate to get away with only a yellow as he dived into a tackle on Ben Browne and instead it was shortly afterwards to be Browne who was marching down the tunnel on seventy seven minutes as he was shown a second yellow card.

Stuart Thompson followed shortly after as he was shown a red on eighty eight minutes for a second yellow card.

And so with minutes remaining the nine man Distillery team had to hold on somehow. PSNI had a last chance to win the game as a corner nearly found Adamczyk only for McBride to punch the ball away, and there was relief as the whistle sounded.