ACFL Division 1

Moneyglass 0-8 Aghagallon 1-7

A Eunan Walsh goal, midway through the second half swung this one in favour of County championship finalists, St. Mary’s Aghagallon when they travelled to Marrian Hill on Sunday to face newly promoted St. Ergnat’s Moneyglass in the opening round of the 2023 ACFL Division 1 and were given a stern test by a youthful home side before edging home winners by two points.

Tiernan McCormack, Paul Duffin, Kevin McCann, Frank Duffin all made their first start  for the home side and Sean Boyd came into the game as a substitute and they certainly made a strong contribution for the home team.

The Marrion Hill side took a time to settle with Aghagallon making the early running but the visitors were wasteful in front of the post with a number of scoring opportunities going a begging.

In a low scoring opening quarter it was Aghagallon who held an early 0-2 to 0-1 lead before going on to lead 0-5 to 0-2 at the interval with Pauric Maginnis leading the way for the men from the Armagh border and Enda McCartan, Jack Lenehan and Caolan Farr their other marksmen.

St. Ergnat’s, despite some promising build up could only manage two opening half scores with Conaill Prenter and Connlaodh McCann the men on target but they still looked very much in contention as the sides changed ends.

Both sides stepped up their intensity at the start of the second half with Moneyglass fighting hard to get back into contention but a goal from Eunan Walsh appeared to have killed the St. Ergnat’s challenge as it put the visitors 1-7 to 0-4 ahead, their points coming from Jack Lenehan, Pauric Maginnis and Hugh Hannon.

Instead it ignited the home side’s challenge and they hit four points without reply with Prenter and McCann adding two apiece but the visitors held firm to emerge victors by two points in it at the end despite a late score from Conor Boyd for the home side.