ACFL Division 2
All Saints 4-13 St. Patrick’s Lisburn 0-9
Ronan ‘Rhino’ McKillop showed his reaction to being substituted at Aldergrove last Wednesday night, and undoubtedly the reaction his manager Liam Bradley would have wanted, when he top scored for All Saints against St. Patrick’s Lisburn in Ballymena on Sunday.
McKillop scored 2-3 for the home side, all from play and with his partner in crime, Benny McDonnell was a constant threat to a St. Patrick’s side who are still looking for their first win in the division having gained promotion from division 3 last year.
McDonnell has hit a rich vein of form in recent weeks and has been a consistent scorer from both play and frees and he contributed another impressive 1-5 as his side coasted to a convincing victory over the Lisburn side.
Luke O’Rawe is another who has stepped up to the plate. The big duel player played most of his football for the reserve side prior to this year but Liam Bradley obviously saw something that previous managers have missed and big Luke has answered the call and weighed in with 1-1 on Sunday.
All Saints have 19 points from 11 starts this season with 8 wins and three draws and as they go into the second half of the season after the split, they will probably look back with some regret at those draws.
In all three occasions All Saints led going into the closing stages but were caught and the one that will really rankle is their draw at Davitt’s where they led by five at one stage but lost their way and were fortunate in the end to get the draw.
However I’m sure ‘Baker’ Bradley and his backroom team would have taken what they have at the start of the season and while the league is only at the halfway stage they are in a fighting position for one of the promotion places.
All Saints: Ryan Stewart, Eoin Walsh, James Gillan, Cal O’Brien, Michael Read, Shaun O’Callaghan, James McDonnell (0-1) , Emmet Killough, Sean McVeigh, Ciaran McGarry, Kavan Keenan (0-1), Brendan McDonnell (1-5) , Matthew Downey, Ronan McKillop (2-3) , Luke O’Rawe (1-1).
Subs: Shea O’Brien for Emmet Killough, Peter McReynolds (0-1) for Kavan Keenan, Eoin Campbell (0-1) for Ciaran McGarry, Joe Rafferty for James Gillan