Foran's strike was his 13th of the season and signalled unlucky 13 for ex-Carlisle boss Ian Atkins, who was within a few minutes of guiding his Oxford side to a point. In truth it would have been a deserved point as neither team looked to have gained much of an initiative during a drab second half. The Cumbrians had an early sniff of goal when Bulls skipper Andy Crosby got in a tangle with his keeper Richard Knight and almost headed into his own net. However the ball ran away to safety. Shortly after this a deep cross from the right from Mark Birch landed on the left foot of Peter Murphy but the ball wouldn't sit and it was cleared. The breakthrough arrived in the 17th minute. Ian Stevens collected a loose ball on the edge of the box after Oxford failed to clear and steered a right-footed shot into the corner of the net out of the reach of the despairing Knight. Oxford looked quite dangerous themselves intermittently but it took a touch of controversy to see them level. Dave Rogers misjudged a header, the ball bouncing over him to Phil Gary, and tricky winger Jamie Brooks collected his pass to seemingly spring the United offside trap and went on to finish well past Peter Keen, clipping the ball home into the far corner. United fans protested loudly and vociferously but it did seem at first glance that Brooks was marginally onside. Chances were relatively few and far between and the referee took action to book Stevens and Birch followed by the visiting pair of Darren Patterson and Dave Morley, the ex-United man who had a busy and often effective game in midfield. The second period settled into a pattern early on and the visitors for a long spell looked more likely scorers. Brooks showed good skill to get to the byline, beating Birch in the process and saw his cross-cum-shot shave the bar with no-one on hand to finish things off. Later Oxford came even closer. Morley met a Matthew Bound free-kick at the far post and his header was past Keen and seemingly on its way in until Foran got his head in the way at the last second to prevent the visitors grabbing the lead. An angry Roddy Collins then grabbed the limelight by kicking the ball away in frustration after a loose pass and received a severe ticking off from referee Danson. He brought on Steve Halliday and Stuart Whitehead to play in midfield and their more measured passing helped the Cumbrians dictate the play a bit. Despite this, late in the game Collins pulled off his jacket as he seemed set to explode. It seemed his bizarre touchline antics did the trick. Inside added time Foran, whose hard work throughout the game had brought little reward, managed to shake off his marker with his back to goal and turned well to send in a left-footed shot out of the reach of Knight and just inside the post to snatch victory. Al's verdict: We were no better than we were against Hartlepool, in fact we were probably worse but Foran popped up like the cavalry to claim the all-important goal. For all the talk of Atkins's long-ball tactics, there was little difference between the two sides approach and Rogers' goal-line heroics probably saved the day. With relegation now officially off the menu, we can at least afford to relax a little bit. Although Roddy probably won't. |
