Slovenia: Winning Start to Tour
leedsunited.com 10/7/13
Select XI beaten....
SLOVENIAN SELECT XI 1 (Grah 69), LEEDS UNITED 3 (Smith 10, Hunt 40, Poleon 66)
United (first half): Kenny, Peltier, Lees, Pugh, Taylor, Norris, Green, Murphy, White, Smith, Hunt.
United (second half): Cairns, Thompson, Killock, Pearce, Warnock, Brown, Tonge, Drury, McCormack, Varney, Poleon.
Brian McDermott again opted to field two seperate XIs for the opening game of the Slovenian trip, against a representative team from the region. Jamie Ashdown and Sam Byram have travelled, but are in the throes of recovering from injury while Rodolph Austin is likely to make his first appearance of the summer on Saturday. This game did, however, see a first start for summer signing Luke Murphy.
Despite temperatures of 28 degrees, the hosts were up against it from the start, and after Tom Lees went close early on, Matt Smith bagged the opener from close range, following a strong burst by Noel Hunt.
Moments later, Hunt had the ball in the net again, but a flag was raised. It was all very comfortable for Leeds, though, who controlled proceedings and forced the home side to defend deep.
Aidy White rattled the post after more good work by Hunt and Smith forced an acrobatic save from the goalkeeper as 300 travelling fans showed their appreciation by making pleny of noise at one end of the ground.
The home side had their first real effort on 38 minutes with a shot which went over Paddy Kenny's bar, but it was 2-0 before the break when Hunt headed home from close range.
United made a wholesale change at the interval, but the second half started in the same vein. Luke Varney twice went close to furthering the advantage before Stephen Warnock tried his luck from distance.
Dominic Poleon also brought about a good save from the home goalkeeper, but momemts later he made no mistake with a powerful strike.
The 3-0 advantage lasted a matter of minutes before the hosts pulled one back - a close range cross conversion - but Michael Brown came within a whisker of restoring the three-goal margin straight from the restart.
Both Brown and Poleon went close again in the dying moments, but the game ended in a 3-1 victory.
United boss Brian McDermott was delighted with the opening game of the Slovenian tour after watching his squad ease past a representative XI to kick things off with a win.
Goals from Matt Smith, Noel Hunt, and Dominic Poleon secured a comfortable 3-1 victory against a Slovenian team comprising of players from the country's second and third divisions.
The temperature touched the 90 degree mark for much of the game, and the boss, who fielded two different starting XIs in each half, was more than pleased with the exercise.
"They trained really, really hard the day before," he said. "We would never do anything like that before a league game.
"It went exactly the way I thought it was going to go. It was very difficult conditions, but the reason we're here is for fitness.
"We passed it well and scored some good goals, so I was pleased.
"We had a lot of the ball in the first half and we're trying to play a certain way. We're adapting to that and I think you can see it."
United (first half): Kenny, Peltier, Lees, Pugh, Taylor, Norris, Green, Murphy, White, Smith, Hunt.
United (second half): Cairns, Thompson, Killock, Pearce, Warnock, Brown, Tonge, Drury, McCormack, Varney, Poleon.
Brian McDermott again opted to field two seperate XIs for the opening game of the Slovenian trip, against a representative team from the region. Jamie Ashdown and Sam Byram have travelled, but are in the throes of recovering from injury while Rodolph Austin is likely to make his first appearance of the summer on Saturday. This game did, however, see a first start for summer signing Luke Murphy.
Despite temperatures of 28 degrees, the hosts were up against it from the start, and after Tom Lees went close early on, Matt Smith bagged the opener from close range, following a strong burst by Noel Hunt.
Moments later, Hunt had the ball in the net again, but a flag was raised. It was all very comfortable for Leeds, though, who controlled proceedings and forced the home side to defend deep.
Aidy White rattled the post after more good work by Hunt and Smith forced an acrobatic save from the goalkeeper as 300 travelling fans showed their appreciation by making pleny of noise at one end of the ground.
The home side had their first real effort on 38 minutes with a shot which went over Paddy Kenny's bar, but it was 2-0 before the break when Hunt headed home from close range.
United made a wholesale change at the interval, but the second half started in the same vein. Luke Varney twice went close to furthering the advantage before Stephen Warnock tried his luck from distance.
Dominic Poleon also brought about a good save from the home goalkeeper, but momemts later he made no mistake with a powerful strike.
The 3-0 advantage lasted a matter of minutes before the hosts pulled one back - a close range cross conversion - but Michael Brown came within a whisker of restoring the three-goal margin straight from the restart.Both Brown and Poleon went close again in the dying moments, but the game ended in a 3-1 victory.
United boss Brian McDermott was delighted with the opening game of the Slovenian tour after watching his squad ease past a representative XI to kick things off with a win.
Goals from Matt Smith, Noel Hunt, and Dominic Poleon secured a comfortable 3-1 victory against a Slovenian team comprising of players from the country's second and third divisions.
The temperature touched the 90 degree mark for much of the game, and the boss, who fielded two different starting XIs in each half, was more than pleased with the exercise.
"They trained really, really hard the day before," he said. "We would never do anything like that before a league game.
"It went exactly the way I thought it was going to go. It was very difficult conditions, but the reason we're here is for fitness.
"We passed it well and scored some good goals, so I was pleased.
"We had a lot of the ball in the first half and we're trying to play a certain way. We're adapting to that and I think you can see it."