The new look Ants travelled to Meadow Park to face an Irvine Meadow side who themselves had undergone a pre-season transformation and it was the Ayrshire men who came out on top in this friendly match, but more importantly the new Ants management team got to have a look at a number of players and the first steps to full match fitness in time for the season beginning were taken.
The 5-1 scoreline makes it look like a battering but the game was much closer than the scoreline suggests, The Ants took the lead in the 22nd minute when midfielder JOHN MCGOWAN, in his second spell at the club hit a shot from fully 25 yards. It looked like the keeper would catch it but somehow it squirmed out of his grasp and into the back of the net. The Ants lead lasted only 8 minutes when the impressive BEN BLACK went on a mazy run, you get the feeling that had this indeed been a competitive match he would have been stopped, but he showed great composure to beat a couple of men then slot pas Connolly to level the match and the half finished 1-1.
The second half saw sweeping changes to the Ants line up with a full 9 players coming on for the visitors, with only full back Ross Cameron and goalkeeper Jon Connolly not being subbed. The match remained level until the 68th minute when Black’s cross hit off the head of Henderson who couldn’t have done anything about it and ricocheted past the diving Connolly to put the Medda 2-1 in front. The Ants gave as good as they got but a number of players only had 1 or 2 training sessions under their belt and began to tire towards the end and Medda took full advantage, scoring 3 goals in the last 5 minutes with a double for GREG VERNON sandwiching a GRAHAM MUIR strike.
The full time score may have been 5-1 but there were plenty of positives for co-managers Ronnie McDonald and Tony Kane to take from the game.
