ACFL Division1

St. Gall’s 2-13 St. John’s 3-9

The always fiery local rivalry between these sides brought a high scoring contest to Milltown and with the return of County men for both sides, the game brought with it some great end to end action.

St John’s came out of the traps early and with relentless pressure and direct running from Conal Hynds and Patrick McBride, and were rewarded for their efforts and managed to score three early goals.

These was added to by another three points from play and place ball and the Johnnies looked on course for their first win of the season.

St Galls were stunned found themselves 3:3 to 0:1 down after 15 minutes. This left the men in blue with a mountain to climb but that they did, as they dug deep to score 2-7 without reply in what was an exciting turnaround.

2-3 of those scores came from the impressive Niall Burns and 0-2 from the experienced Michael Pollock. In remarkable fashion St Galls found themselves one up at the break.

The second half again brought with it a thrilling contest which was tightly contested throughout and with not much separating the sides. Niall Burns and Bara McCaffery kept the score board ticking for the ‘Blues’ whilst Conal Mc Glade and Luke Peden kept the game within touching distance for the visitors. St Galls however used their bench well and would be glad to see the return of key players from injury to include Niall O’Neill who proved a dangerous target man inside in, winning a number of balls and setting up some key scores to keep the game his side in front.

Aodhan Gallagher also sparked life into the St Galls men from the bench and his experience showed around the middle of the field at key moments. Considering the bad start, St Galls showed true grit and held out for an impressive win to keep their unbeaten run alive while St. John’s still await their first win of the season but on this performance it shouldn’t be too long in coming.