ACFL Division 1
St. Ergnat’s 1-8 Cargin 2-13
A goal from Conan Johnston after 9 minutes swung this game firmly in the direction of Erin’s Own Cargin as they overcame the challenge of neighbours, St. Ergnat’s Moneyglass at Marion Hill on Wednesday evening.
Up to this point the home side were giving as good as they got with points from Conor Boyd, Colum Duffin and Seanchan Duffin in response to similar scores from Tomas McCann and Cahir Donnelly leaving it finely balanced after 12 minutes.
Johnston’s goal changed all that and St. Ergnat’s would not raise another flag for the remainder of the half as league leaders, Cargin pushed on with James Laverty, Tomas McCann, Tom Shivers and two more from the impressive McCann moving the visitors 1-7 to 0-3 ahead at the halfway point.
St. Ergnat’s threatened a comeback at the start of the second half as they hit three points on the bounce through Kevin McCann and two from Colum Duffin to leave four between the sides with only five minutes of the second half gone.
Things turned decisively in favour of the visitors however when they were awarded a penalty in the 8th minute and Tomas McCann stepped forward to beat Daniel McErlain from the spot and restore his side’s 7 point advantage.
Conan Johnston and Tomas McCann added points for the visitors with Dermot McErlain replying for the home side and Ben McLarnon and Aidan McErlain exchanged further points as the Toome side continued to enjoy the better of the exchanges.
Kevin McShane came forward from defence to add another point for Cargin with four minutes of normal time remaining but Moneyglass were still fighting hard and were finally rewarded for their efforts as Aiden McErlain fired past John McNabb in the 27th minute.
It only served to put a better look on the scoreline however and Tom Shivers replied with a point at the other end to conclude the scoring to keep Ronan Devlin’s side top of the league on score difference over Portglenone and St. Brigid’s.
Moneyglass opened their account last week with a win over Aldergrove in Crumlin and while they never really looked like adding another victory here, there will be aspects of their play that will be pleasing to manager, Benny Marron and that second win shouldn’t be too long in coming.
St. Ergnat’s: 1 Daniel McErlain, 2 Colm McStocker, 3 Diarmuid Scullin, 4 James McCormick, 6 Paul Duffin, 7 Connlaodh McCann, 8 Connor O’Kane, 9 Dermot McErlain, 10 Jimmy McMeel, 11 Seanchan Duffin, 12 Eamonn Kelly, 13 Conor Boyd, 14 Colm Duffin, 15 Aidan McErlain, 16 Rory Gribbon,
Subs: Sean Boyd for Callum McStocker, Matthew Mullen for Eamonn Kelly, Fergal Duffin for Conor O’Kane, Jamie McLaughlin for Conor O’Kane
Cargin: 1 John McNabb, 2 Sean Og O’Neill, 3 Kevin McShane, 4 Cahir Donnelly, 5 Justin Crozier, 6 Padraic McLaughlin, 7 Jamie Gribbin, 8 Gerard McCann, 9 James Laverty, 10 David Johnston, 11 Tomas McCann, 12 Conan Johnston, 13 Tom Shivers, 14 Michael McCann, 15 Callum Gribbin
Subs: Ben McLarnon
Referee: Kevin Parke (St. Enda’s)
Click on the Moneyglass v Cargin link below