Devonshire Cougars 1

Flanagan’s Onions 1

Mick Ward, the Flanagan’s Onions coach, hailed his depleted side’s Herculean effort after they dented Devonshire Cougars’ title hopes with a hard-earned draw yesterday at the Den.

The visitors had to dig deep against Cougars who spent almost the entire second period camped inside the Onions half, becoming increasingly more desperate in their pursuit of an expected victory.

Cougars enjoyed far more possession than their opponents but failed to create too many clear-cut chances. And on the few occasions they did manage to breach Onions’ watertight defence they were frustrated by the impressive goalkeeping of Stephen Gould.

“We were struggling for a team today with so many players off the island and what not,” Ward said. “To be so depleted with the numbers and still come out with a draw — well, we would have taken that before the game.

“A couple of the boys came down with cramp, myself included — probably too much turkey — but to be fair we showed a bit of talent as well and showed what we’re made of.”

Missing a raft of key players through either injury, illness or off-island commitments, Onions took a surprise lead in the 40th minute when a long throw by Sam Butler was flicked on by Martel Laws into the path of Kevin Ronaldson, who prodded home from close range.

Soon after the interval Cougars were back on level terms when Tre Dill’s low cross from the right wing found an unmarked Domico Coddington at the back-post who calmly tapped into an empty net.

Already visibly tired, an ageing Onions side, without creative outlets Stephen Lister (knee injury) and Keston Lewis (off island), spent much of the remainder of the game trying to keep Cougars at bay.

But what Onions lacked in ingenuity they more than made up with hard work and bloody-mindedness and almost grabbed an unlikely winner late on when substitute Dermot O’Sullivan’s hopeful strike from distance forced goalkeeper Daniel Johnson into a diving save.

Cougars best chance of the second half fell to Coddington who seemed to lose his footing when he was about the pull the trigger, allowing the onrushing Gould to smother the danger.

Ward is confident they will be no repeat of the slide Onions suffered during the second half of last season and believes his side will be even tougher to beat when they return to full strength.

“Being one nil up I was hoping we could hold on but it wasn’t to be,” he said.

“You always expect to come away with something and we always play to win regardless of the team we put out.

“We’ve still got lads to come back and that’s only going to make us stronger.

“Last season I think we had four back-to-back away games in the second half of the season, whereas we’ve got a few home games coming up and it’s important we make our home form count and pick up what we can away from home, like we did today.”

n Also in the Premier Division yesterday, PHC defeated Wolves 3-0 thanks to a Ryan Hassell hat-trick at Southampton Oval.

College student Hassell, who starred in PHC’s Player Development League Festival Cup success over Christmas, continued his scoring form, opening his account from a corner midway through the first half and then adding further goals in the 50th and 65th minutes.

PHC moved two places in the standings, ahead of both Rangers and Hamilton Parish.