Reserve Football Shield
All Saints Ballymena 0-07 Glenravel Con Magees2-11
Con Magees Glenravel produced a good all round team performance to win this Reserve Football Shield game in Quinn Park under floodlights. The home side scored the game’s first point but after that the visitors went into overdrive and won the game quite convincingly in the end.
The opening minutes were fairly evenly balanced with both sides trying to work out each other’s strategy until Darach Bradley pointed from a free for All Saints – Bradley would go on to be their top marksman on the night. However Aiden O’Donnell levelled the game five minutes later and Fintan Hodgson popped up for a point from his corner back berth putting Glenravel into the lead, a lead they would not relinquish for the remainder of the game. Conleth O’Loan and Senan Black extended Glenravel’s lead to 0-04 to 0-01 by the end of the first quarter. It wasn’t all one way traffic and had All Saints converted some of their goal chances midway through the first half the game would have taken on a very different complexion. Saints managed to carve open the Con Magees defence on more than one occasion and it took a miraculous save by Glenravel netminder, Jude Scullion to keep them goalless.
As is the fashion these days in gaelic football, the goalkeeper can often be the furthest forward player and All Saint’s keeper Connor Brennan provided an overlap on two occasions, recording two fine score from play making him their top scorer at that time when he levelled the game at 0-04 each with ten minutes of the half remaining. Aiden O’Donnell and Matthew Downey exchanged points to keep honours even but in the final five minutes of the first half Glenravel wrestled control of the game when their lively half forward Conleth O’Loan scored 1-01 to put the visitors firmly in the driving seat. Towards the end of the half Glenravel managed to hit the woodwork three times in a goalmouth scramble which ended in All Saints keeper Connor Brennan falling on the ball and dislocating his shoulder in the process. The referee awarded Glenravel a penalty for the keeper not releasing the ball but in hindsight the hapless keeper probably couldn’t move. Brennan walked off and headed straight to casualty, whilst the replacement keeper’s first action was to face a penalty which Conleth O’Loan dispatched to the net to bring his tally to 2-02 for the first half and give his side a commanding lead at the interval 2-06 to 0-05.
The second half was lit up, literally, when the floodlights came on as is necessary at this time of year with 7:30pm throw-ins. Ballymena needed a good start to get themselves back into contention but Glenravel continued where they had left off with four unanswered points coming from Daragh Donaghy (0-02), Conleth O’Loan and a wonder score from Aiden O’Donnell to make it 2-10 to 0-05. At this stage, with fifteen minutes left to play, Glenravel were content to play keep ball and their opponents seemed reluctant to put them under pressure so the final quarter petered into a lateral passing game with not much by way of incisive play. Darach Bradley would put over a couple of points but at no stage did All Saints look likely to mount a recovery as the game ended with Glenravel victorious 2-11 to 0-07 and the gathered spectators headed to their cars amid the evening gloom of late summer guided by floodlights that provided the only brightness from a local’s point of view.
