Fri September 30, 2016 League 1 Ontario--Durham United FA vs North Toronto Nitros (from League 1 Ontario website)

Doyle Brace Gets North Toronto 3-2 Away Win Over Durham In Final League Match
10/02/2016, 11:00pm EDT
By League1 Ontario staff

North Toronto Nitros ended their first League1 Ontario season on a high note, 
beating Durham United FA 3-2 at Kinsmen Park on Friday night. 

Jaden Doyle (9', 89') grabbed a brace for the Nitros, while Niba MacDonald (70') 
chipped in with a third. 

"I thought tonight was really poor, but the guys dug deep and in spite of being 
down a man each, and expecting Durham to get momentum, our boys went right 
back up there and got the winning goal," said North Toronto assistant coach, 
Gary Fleming. 

In what was also Durham's final match of the season, Shaun Claud Lawson (37') 
and Josh Parades (85') tallied strikes for the hosts, but it wasn't enough 
to bring the result they wanted.   

"I'm more disappointed for the players [than myself]," said Durham head coach, 
Sanford Carabin. "We had a good lineup today, we had good players and they were 
motivated to play. It's just one of those games where we thought, we're going 
to control it, control it, and then just as it has been all year - it's that 
counter-attack that we haven't learned to defend." 

"It's happened... actually I don't have enough fingers and toes to count," 
he added. 

"But, today, even though they scored their first goal on us quickly off 
a counter, we just didn't wake up." 

Both teams are already looking forward to the off-season, and how to make 
the necessary tweaks to improve the squads. Carabin indicated the Durham 
coaching staff will be looking closely at both training regime and personnel. 

"Our culture is really an attacking team, so we like to keep the ball and 
control play, but when you're dealing with guys that don't switch on when 
we lose it, or not enough of them switch on, then we get countered a lot," 
he said. "It's something that the coaching staff has talked about and we'll 
have to work on that [in the off-season], but it may be just the makeup 
of players that we have."

"We have to have players that are stronger mentally, and can transition and 
stay focused in the game a little bit longer." 

"Having a bit of preseason to work on these things is crucial, because now 
that we know how we want to play, we know where our weakness is. So as long 
as we can strengthen them, and reduce the amount of goals we gave up off 
the counter, I think we'll be better off next year."

Fleming spoke of how happy the North Toronto technical staff was with the 
performance of the team in their debut League1 Ontario season, finishing 
no less than third in the east division. 

"We're very satisfied with the team over the course of the season, and a lot 
of lessons learned as well, particularly with all the university players 
leaving," he explained. 

"We figured it was a drop in standard for us, but actually when I look 
at the records we are seven and one after losing most of our players. I think 
what that shows is that even our reserve players have good quality there. 
The standard didn't drop as much as we were thinking it would."

"As a club we have a lot of things to look at in the off-season, we have 
a relationship with U of T, and a lot of things we learned. It was a very 
successful season for us," he concluded. 

"We were going to be happy to be in mid-table, and we're definitely finishing 
in third and possibly second given other results. We're very happy with 
our season." 

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