U15 Boys All County League Div 2
All Saints 2-12 Gort na Mona 1-05
All Saints and Gort na Mona served up a great game of football in the U15 Football League at a sunny Quinn Park last night.
The visitors made the better start and grabbed an early goal from a long ball into the corner forward who caught, turned and fired to the roof of the net. Ballymena slowly started to get on top and a free and a point from play from Fiontan Bradley settled the nerves. The Saints continued to drive forward and some good defensive blocks from the Gorts defence were in vain as the ball broke to Conan McKeown and he drove it to the net to put the the home sidein front.
Gort na Mona replied with a good point after some neat passing but All Saints responded when Paddy Murphy drove forward from defence, leaving a number of defenders in his wake and slotted it over the bar from 35 meters. Bradley, who with Jakub Kaczmarek, we’re now dominating midfield curled over an excellent point, and followed that up with another from a free.
Unfortunately for the visitors a misplaced pass from the keeper allowed McKeown to intercept and slot neatly to the net to widen the margin as the home side continued to enjoy the better of the exchanges. O’Brien and Watt combined brilliantly on the right wing, with Watt drawing the foul. The resulting free dropped short only for Jack Dowds to punch towards goal but his effort smacked the crossbar.
Bradley finished the first half scoring with another super point to leave the half time score 2-6 to 1-1 in favour of the Quinn Park side.
GortnaMona came racing out of the blocks at the start of the second half and scored a great point from play and a free from 35 meters to narrow the margin. The Ballymena defence stood firm however with great work from Anderson, Connon, Hegarty and King to weather the early storm.
McQuillan broke forward from wing back to set up Bradley for another score from play and then Good interplay from Crooks and McManus resulted in a foul 30 meters out and again Bradley slotted over.
McKeown and Dowds worked well on the inside line to earn another pointed free and a long ball into McKeown saw him turn and shoot to raise another white flag. Gort na Mona responded with a free after applying pressure on the Saints defence but they were finding their scoring opportunities limited by a strong All Saints defence.
O’Brien then recovered the ball in defence to set up substitute McKervey who blasted over a great point from 40 meters and substitutes Patterson, McGlone and McGarry showed good movements in attack in the last few minutes.
Agnew had a solid game in goal for the Saints but Gort naMona kept the fight going and slotted another pointed free before final points from McKeown and Kaczmarek finished the scoring as Referee Gerard Dougan sounded the final whistle and All Saints garnered their first league win of the campaign after an entertaining game.