Dalata Hotel Group Ulster U20 Football Championship Group A,

Down 5-19 Antrim 0-21

Antrim’s involvement in the Ulster U20 Football Championship ended at Pairc Esler on Wednesday evening when they were well beaten by Down.

After getting their first point of the competition at the weekend against Fermangh there was a bit more optimism in the camp going into this game, but the Down side were dominant from the start and quite frankly the game was as good as over at half time when the home side led by 4-10 to 0-03.

Down started very strongly and had three points on the board in as many minute. Antirm had an early goal chance when JJ Higgins worked an opening but the Down netminder Ronan Burns made a good save to deny the corner forward and from then until the interval it was all one way traffic.

Man of the match Ruairi Madine had the ball in the Antrim net on 11 minutes and it wasn’t long to he raised two more green flags. Conhuir Johnston got Antirm on the scoreboard on eighteen minutes but it was merely token resistance as the home teams sent over scores from everywhere and Madine set up Lorcan Ward for a fourth goal before the break, while Tarlach Enright and Rory McErlean got Antrim’s other scores, as the Mourne men pushed on to lead by 19 points at the interval. (4-10 to 0-03)

Antrim showed a little better in the second half and actually hit five two-pointers during that period through McKenna, Adams, Johnston and Enright, but Down were home and hosed by this stage as they ended thirteen clear at the final whistle.

Wednesday evening sees the final games in the group when Antrim travel to Tyrone while Down take on Fermanagh.

Down R Burns 0-1 (45); B Christie, L Vaughan, L Lynch; D Murdock 0-1, J McFerran, C Morgan; D McKernan, D McAleenan 0-2; E Murray 0-2, L Ward 1-2, E Travers 0-1; B McEvoy 0-1, R Madine 3-4, O Byrne 0-4 (0-1f)

Subs L Quinn for Murdock (ht), C McGinley 0-1 for McEvoy (41), C Clerkin for Ward (41), R Magorrian for Madine (44), C Ward 1-0 for Travers (49)

Antrim J McLaughlin; S Doyle, D McGurk, C Hale; R Quinn, P Duffin, E Walsh 0-1; N Hynds, S Ferris; C Walsh, T Enright 0-4 (0-1f, 1×45, 1tpf), R McErlean 0-1; JJ Higgins, C Johnston 0-6 (0-3f, 1tpf), L Phillips

Subs M McKenna 0-5 (2tp) for Hynds (h-t), S Adams 0-2 (1tp), for Ferris (h-t), D Martin for Higgins (h-t), O McKenna for Phillips (39), S Boyd 0-1 for McErlean (44)

Referee Niall McKenna (Monaghan)