St. Brigid’s played St. Mary’s Aghagallon in their first home fixture of the season on Wednesday night and were beaten by a goal in the last three minutes to earn a one point victory for the men in green.
The Malone Road boy’s have had a three week lull between Div 2 matches and their under 21 Championship run and match rustiness was certainly a factor in the narrow defeat,
The first ten minutes saw St. Brigid’s scorn at least two goal chances when Dara Edwards normally a reliable finisher hit wide on two occasions when the goals beckoned The first two points came from
The wing half forward pairing of Reilly and O’ Hagan the latter of which did a sterling job high fielding on a number of occasions. After a bright initial opening the St. Brigid’s full forward line were guilty in particular of both wasting chances and not closing the opposition down when their opponents had the ball.
The midfield sector was coming under pressure and if it were not for the centre spine of McGonagle and
Richard Smyth then the half time score of 5 points to three could well have been greater. Despite both teams kicking wide, it was the better shot selection of the Visitors forward line and Antrim Minor Star McAlarnon in particular that made the difference.
Manager MacSherry replaced Conor Mullan with John McGuckian in midfield and what was a lacklustre sector in the first half was transformed to a shining star in the second. However scores were hard to come by and Brolly amongst others was guilty of taking the wrong option and poor shooting . It took a point from play
From sub mcGuckian to ignite the second half. Subsequent scores from Brolly and Mel MacSherry from frees meant the come back was on. St Brigid’s were at last out of their stupor and were firing on all cylinders and edged in front with five minutes left with the scores 10 points to 9. However when two
additional point scoring chances presented themselves they were missed, cue an unlikely mistake from
Donnelly at Corner back and despite the best efforts of Mackle in nets a goal chance was taken by the
Country men and Naomh Brid were two behind with two minutes plus injury left.
A huge long range free from Greg McGonagle was all the Malone Road Boys could muster.
For once it was a full forward line that failed to perform collectively that had the most bearing on the
Game, on another day some of the goal chances would have been converted in the first quarter. Both teams kicked many chances wide but it took 30 minutes for the ring rustiness to work its way out of the system
and this was too big a lead to give to Aghagallon.
St. Brigid’s with a large number of travellers to America (4 ) and with county Man James Loughrey
Unavailable have a mountain to climb if any serious campaign is to be made at Promotion. St Brigids are at home to Rossa on Sunday next and a much improved will be required against a team challenging for the top spot in the league.
Team: John Mackle, Paul Finnegan, Richard Symth, Joe McKeever, Barry McMahon Greg McGonagle Gareth Macklin, Conor Mullan and Mickey Donnelly, Benny Reilly, Mark Sweeney, Deaghlan O’Hagan
Mel MacSherry, Dara Edwards, Joe Brolly
Subs used : Chris McCann, John McGuckian
Ryan Brolly, Stephen Morrissey ,Chris Donnelly
