Antrim Football League Division 3
Naomh Padraig Lisburn 1-17 O’Donnell’s 1-6
PIC BY GERARD DIXON
Naomh Padraig Lisburn maintained their Division 3 challenge after a convincing home win over O’Donnell’s on Wednesday evening. Ahead by eight points at half time 0-11 to 0-3 the Lisburn side pushed on in the second half and a goal from Che Smyth on his competitive debut in 58 minutes put the seal on an excellent win.
Naomh Padraig were quick out of the traps as they hit the first six points of the game without reply, and from six different players. Aaron Thomson started with a point within thirty seconds and Mark Chernek had added another before the first minute was up. Francis McMeel got his team’s third on six minutes and tow minutes later Oisin Gorman found the target. The scoring blitz continued when Conor Dixon got Naomh Padraig’s fifth and Colm Burns had them six clear when he sent one between the O’Dee posts in the twelfth.
It all seemed plain sailing at this stage but the visitors began to find their range and they rattle off three points between the 12th and 23rd minutes to cut the deficit in half. However the home side found their rhythm again and hit back strongly with five more, Mark Torbitt making it seven different scorers as he added one to help his side to a 0-11 to 0-3 interval lead.
If O’Donnell’s were to get back into the game then they needed a good start, and it came just a minute in when they fired to the Naomh Padraig net. The gap was back to five at this stage but the Lisburn side responded well and hit five of the next six points, two of them from Mark Chernek. That more or less wrapped it all up but when Che Smyth came on and grabbed a 58th minute on his debut he became the ninth different player on the team to score, something that must be highly encouraging for the management team.
