End-of-season dish a non-event

Photo: ALAN HOWARTH

DIVING FORCE . . . the excellent Liam Kelly gets Athletic moving.

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Athletic 1, Peterborough 1

INTRIGUE off the field trumped the action on it as two mid-table sides did no more than fulfil their contractual obligations.

Dominic Poleon scored with a deft header, but old wounds were opened after that as Athletic sank into a comfortable armchair of rank mediocrity, unable to hold off a Posh side reduced to 10 men by the 67th minute.

Michael Bostwick's equaliser came after his team-mate, hulking teenage striker Jonathan Edwards, had hopped, skipped and lunged at James Wilson.

Referee Gary Sutton showed a red card and Athletic wilted as Posh rolled up their sleeves. When they crossed the white line after the game, Dean Holden's players were left reflecting on another one that got away in a campaign full of catches that have wriggled free. It wasn't quite wooden spoon stuff. Thankfully the threat of relegation never got too close.

But Masterchef winner and Athletic fan Simon Wood, watching this end-of-season stodge as a special guest, must have been thinking football does get much tougher than this.

Still, if a game featuring two sides experimenting with teenage talent thoroughly lived down to low expectations, nobody would have guessed the name that was to cross the lips of supporters before news leaked out who was taking Holden's role as the new number one.

“Darren who?” asked fans in the Chaddy End, soaking up their surroundings for one last time before the big move next season.

Manager-in-waiting Darren Kelly won't have needed a disguise to blend in with the regular punters, such is his relative obscurity.

But armed with more badges than a cub scout, the coach from Derry will no doubt have watched intently and spotted key areas to improve on as he embarks on his first managerial role.

The season's points tally of 57 – the best since 2008-09, but still a disappointment following high hopes of a play-off challenge before a crippling injury list – was only a dozen short of the top six.

That extra step forward is tough to take with Athletic's slim budget. The squad was upped in quality this term, but a lack of numbers told.

Astutely assigning the little money he has to spend is an essential trick Kelly will have to master.

Initially, his notepad of objectives for 2015-16 will read something like this:

Find commanding centre-back (Anthony Gerrard?). Get Jonathan Forte fit. Cast adrift loan duds and think very carefully about them in future. Find big centre-forward/a winger or two. Send Liam Kelly away to a remote location for the whole summer (no mobile access).

SportsDirect.com Park will be a very different arena on which to play next season with its gleaming new stand, posh seats and plasma screens. If Athletic start the first home game in August the way they did this one, there won't be many complaints.

With Holden making three changes after an insipid effort at Walsall, a new formation of three forwards penned in Peterborough as Athletic sought their first league win in eight games.

Brian Wilson was able to pile down the right flank and it was his cross that was met by the firm head of Poleon, peeling off his marker Michael Smith to nod carefully back across goal and in off the far post in the ninth minute.

A brutal but totally legal block tackle from Carl Winchester left Peterborough schemer Erhun Oztumer in a bad way, thankfully with no real lasting damage other than a cut, and Gabriel Zakuani was also forced off through injury in the first half as a visiting side featuring 16-year-old Leo da Silva Lopes was forced to rearrange its line-up.

Yet Athletic's fluency ebbed away. Poleon's rugged runs forward were the home team's main hope of a second goal.

Jordan Bove worked a lovely one-two with Danny Philliskirk before the ball was nicked off his toe as he wound up to shoot inside the box.

Edwards marched off to leave Posh a man short, after James Wilson had tested Ben Alnwick with a volley from the edge of the penalty box.

Bostwick's leveller came after a corner was poorly defended and but for the cheer that a debut from dyed-in-the-wool Athletic fan Jack Tuohy (18) brought with it, that was pretty much that, save for the traditional post-match photo opportunities.

“We started the game very well, passing it around before we started playing too straight and too slow,” said Holden, who will now assist in plans for next term as second-in-command.

“A point each was probably right. It was symptomatic of the season in that we gave away a soft goal.

“We will look back on what we have done well and what we have not done well. I am sure we will be working out how we can progress the club.”