With a view to the impending u21 football championship, Conor MacSherry fielded a young Naomh Brid u21 side who edged their opposite numbers by two points in an entertaining match under the lights at Harlequins on Wednesday night. The home side started brightly and were rewarded early on with a good goal from the impressive Ben Synnot who sprang from wing half back, exchanging passes, before finishing to the net. Jack Dowling was in sparkling form at midfield, his high fielding and strong running laying the platform for the Biddies to build a handy five point half time lead, as the McGrady brothers and Mooney (from the placed kick) picked off some fine scores.
Naomh Brid continued to dominate in the early stages of the second half despite MacSherry ringing a number of personnel and positional changes, and they extended their lead to eight points as Cormac McGrady found the net after another sweeping move, as the match threatened to run away from Creggan. But credit to the south west side they kept plugging away and began to eat into the deficit as they grabbed the initiative at midfield. A scrappy goal narrowed the gap to just two points as they laid siege to the home defence. With time almost up the deficit was further reduced to one but McGrady struck a fine point as Creggan’s monopoly of possession was finally broken and a relieved Naomh Brid banked two deserved league points.
Best for the home side on the night were the Mackle and McGrady brothers, Andy Sweeney, Ben Synnot and Jack Dowling. On the basis of this performance and attitude shown, there are grounds for optimism in the u21 championship tie against a fancied O’Donovan Rossa next month.
Full time: Naomh Brid 2-12 Creggan 1-13
Team: R Mackle, A Sweeney, G Bogue (M Kelly), C Mackle, B Synott, M Malone, P Lundy (R Finegan), B Kelly, B Leonard (R Flanagan), C Mackle, J Dowling, P Mooney, R McGrady, O MacDonald, C McGrady
Man of the match: J Dowling
