All County U17 Football League Division 2
All Saints 4-13 Ardoyne 1-5
Ballymena All Saints minors produced a strong performance to move joint top of the All County U17 Football League division 2 when they ran out easy winners in the end against a young and dogged Ardoyne side at Slemish Park.
Saints started strongly and completely dominated possession in the first half but they failed to convert this dominance to the scoreboard and only led by 3 points to nil after 20 minutes.
This was due to a combination of good Ardoyne defending from Eoin Craig at fullback and Ethan Magill at centre half, and some poor finishing by the All Saints forward line.
Fiontan Bradley clipped over a score along with points from Dowds and McKeown but the home side should have been further ahead given their amount of possession.
The home defence was water tight with McKillop, Watt, O’Brien and Crooks mopping up any Ardoyne attacks.
Paddy Murphy notched a fisted point to stretch the lead to four then a well worked attack between Mitchell, Pearse McAuley, and Hendren found wing forward McKeown at the back post to slam to the net.
Ardoyne couldn’t get going, and a final point of the half from Mitchell made it 1-05 to 0-00 for the Ballymena side at the short whistle despite the home sides’ dominance.
Ardoyne needed a quick start to the 2nd half and that they got, with Fiontan Lagan winning the throw-in, finding James McAuley out wide. He dropped a high ball in which was clinically fisted to the net.
Kickhams tails were up, and they added a fine point to bring them within 4 points of their opponents and it looked like we might have a game on our hands.
That was as close as the Belfast men got however as All Saints got a grip of the game again at midfield, where Lewis Devlin and Jakub Kaczmarek dominant.
Suddenly the All Saints forward line clicked into gear with Pearse Martin dictating the play from centre back which resulted in a fine point from Hendren. Shortly after, disaster struck for the visitors when a shot for a point from Bradley saw the ball loop into the net which was unfortunate for the Kickham’s keeper who had a good game.
A Hendren point, his 2nd of the game was followed by a well worked move, which saw Bradley break through the Ardoyne defence and smash the ball to the roof of the net.
Kaczmarek followed with another after a mazey run and this was followed by a 3rd goal by Bradley, and by now, the Saints were out of sight.
Both sides rung the changes and the Ardoyne lads kept battling, scoring 2 fine frees from distance and a well taken team score finished by their corner forward.
A fine Saints point by wing back Laverty after good work by O’Hara, was responded to with another good score from Ardoyne’s Finnan Lagan. Further Saints points from play by Mitchell and Bradley from distance rounded off the scoring for the Ballymena lads.
This win sees All Saints move joint top of the table with Na Gaeil Oga on 14 points but the Ballymena side have a game on hand and will hope to continue their recent good run when they travel to Portglenone on Wednesday night.