ACFL Div 1
Casements 2 – 17 St Pauls 2 – 06
St Pauls made their first ever trip to O`Ceallaigh Park with the intent to wipe away the pain of their hefty opening game defeat, and can be reasonably satisfied that they obtained that objective against 2023 league winners and hosts Portglenone.
The city men are very much in development mode with successive minor teams hitting heights not seen for a long time in the illustrious red and white hoops, and certainly showed sufficient glimpses to demonstrate that they plan to be around for the foreseeable future.
The truth though is that the outcome was never really in doubt, even if it took Portglenone the full opening quarter to assert their superiority on the scoreboard. However once settled into the contest the Ports tacked numerous unanswered scores to go in comfortably ahead by 8 points at the break, aided in part by a discretion which held the game up and ultimately saw St Pauls reduced to fourteen men.
With the second half wind in their backs and playing into their favoured end, home supporters could be forgiven for thinking that Casements lead could at least be doubled, but St Pauls had other ideas. Impressive full forward Conor Hughes slammed a major past Kevin Quinn after just three minutes to keep the contest interesting, and this was followed by another boost when young Caoimhin Duffy repeated the feat five minutes later.
In between times though Casements playmaker Michael Hagan has his own purple patch, rising highest to an Aidan McAleese free kick to punch to the net, and followed this up with several excellent individual scores of his own to maintain the gap between the teams on the scoreboard.
Several Lorcan Phillips minors and one white flag from Caoimhin Duffy the best score of the day after a notable period of possession was met with similar replies by Casements marksmen Ronan Kelly, Aidan Mc Aleese, Oisin Doherty and Sean Byrne.
Best on the day for the visitors were the Duffy brothers, Niall McStravick and Lorcan Phillips. For the hosts Hagan Brothers Ruairi and Michael, Caolan Tierney, Aidan McAleese and Ronan Kelly who top scored with five points, did all that was asked of them.
When referee Cathal McDermott blew for the final time both teams would settle for their respective outcome.
Portglenone, despite having half a dozen regulars unavailable had two opening day points on the board and St Pauls management made their homeward journey a bit more content in the knowledge that competitive in spells, they will have less difficult assignments after their opening trio of games against Creggan, Casements and Cargin have been completed.