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Newcastle United Reserves	2 - 4	mackem Reserves
Half time:	1 - 3
Score Sheet:
English (45) McMenamin (58)		Kyle (1)   Butler (9)   Kyle (27)   Marchant (66)
	Teams
Jon Brain Andy Griffin Wayne Quinn Ryan McGuffie David Cowan Brian Kerr Diego Gavilan Mark Boyd Colin McMenamin James Coppinger Tommy English		Ingham Harrison McCartney Clark Byrne Medina Bellion Dickman Kyle Butler Oster
Substitutes:
Michael Chopra for Gavilan (46) Peter Ramage for Griffin (65)		Marchant for Oster (41) Brown for Kyle (85)
Subs not used:
Phil Pringle Craig Robson Paul Dunn		James Turns Capper
Bookings:
McGuffie (9) crude lunge at Bellion		n/a
Referee: N,Miller
Attendance:  1,758

21 seconds Striker Kevin Kyle headed home Butler's cross from the left 0-1

9 mins After McGuffie left Bellion sprawled on the wet turf outside the United area and towards the mackem right flank, we were instantly punished by Butler's curled free-kick over the wall and into Brain's bottom left hand corner. 0-2  

27 mins Another needlessly conceded free kick led to another goal - Kyle with a header again, this time from Clark's centre.  0-3 

45 mins Academy midfielder Tommy English fired in a left-footer from the edge of the box at the "Airport End" to mark his debut, just on half-time. Gavilan had supplied the crucial pass, partially atoning for missing an open goal some thirteen minutes earlier. 1-3

Half time: Newcastle Reserves 1 mackems 3 

58 mins Chopra made progress down the right before cutting and sending an inviting low ball across the six yard box for Colin McMenamin to sweep home. 2-3 

66 mins McCartney was allowed to carry the ball unchallenged down the left into the gap just vacated by the injured Griffin, and look up before threading a simple ball across to the far post, where Marchant arrived and tapped home. An over-zealous celebration angered the toon fans in the temporary stand into a chorus of frenzied booing.2-4

Full time: Newcastle Reserves 2 mackems 4 

Tommy Craig commented:

"I think we were shell- shocked, we were 3-0 down after 28 minutes. The bottom line is that we didn't handle Kyle at all. He won every ball in the box, he's big and strong and stood his ground.

"We got off to a poor start and I couldn't see us recovering from that. At 3-2 down we had a glimmer of hope but I still couldn't see us getting back into the game, but we never showed any of our recent form. Their goals came too easily, simple balls into the box and all of a sudden we were three down.

"Sunderland pretty well controlled it throughout and we didn't look like getting anything out of the game."

A weakened Newcastle reserve side were beaten at a soggy Kingston Park on Monday evening by their Wearside rivals, but after being 0-3 down within the first half hour, a final score of 2-4 marks something of a comeback - at one stage it looked like a massacre.

A makeshift centre back pairing of nominal full backs Cowan and McGuffie struggled to cope with the physical threat of Kevin Kyle, as loan deals and first team calls left Tommy Craig with a restricted squad.

We were further weakened when Andy Griffin limped out of the action just after the hour with what looked suspiciously like a groin problem, but was later diagnosed as a dead leg. Griff had only played in an attempt to try and regain some match fitness after returning from yet another period on the sidelines.
 
Annoyingly we may have got something from this game if even one recognised centre back had played - watching from the sidelines was Steve Caldwell, currently on loan at Bradford.

Two other interested observers were current and past Carlisle Managers, Roddy Collins and Michael Wadsworth.

For a brief spell when we got it back to 2-3, a comeback looked possible, but this lasted for only 8 minutes until Marchant got the 4th for them, and the final score could have been much worse, with the mackems hitting the bar three times in the last 20 minutes.

Biffa 

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