ACFL Division 3
St, Brigid’s Cloughmills 1-9 Kickham’s Ardoyne 0-11
Naomh Brid, Cloughmills wrote their own bit of history on Wednesday night when they recorded their first ever football win in only their second appearance in division 3 of the ACFL.
Ardoyne Kickham’s were their opponents and made life extremely difficult for a St. Brigid’s side who were forced to play with their jerseys inside out following a clash of colours.
A big crowd had turned out to witness this occasion as Naomh Brid, a club renowned for its hurling prowess, turned to the big ball game for only their second game and their first on home soil.
And the home support certainly weren’t to be disappointed as both sides served up an entertaining game of football with Naomh Brid taking the game to the opposition early on and moving into a 0-3 to 0-1 lead after 13 minutes.
Eoin Dobbin, Aidan McNeill and Ryan Mark were their marksmen with Odhran McKee replying for the Kickham’s who were finding it difficult to contain a lively home attack.
Dobbin added his second of the evening before the visitors replied through Brendan Hamilton from a well struck free but Naomh Brid were still edging the exchanges and Dobbin fired to the net to move them five ahead by the 22nd minute.
The visitors finished the half strongly as they began to find their rhythm with Odhran McKee, Patrick McGreevey and Brendan Hamilton all on target in response to a pointed free from Aidan McNeill following a breach.
Trailing by a goal at the halfway stage, it was visitors Ardoyne who made the early second half running but found scores hard to come bye as the Home side put their bodies on the line to prevent them scoring, executing some excellent blocks.
Ace marksman, Brendan Hamilton finally got the North Belfast side up and running as he converted a 10th minute free and then Cloughmills lost a player to a second yellow card as the game turned into a war of attrition.
Two more conversions from the excellent Hamilton had it back to one at the end of the third quarter and it looked like Ardoyne were taking over but the ‘Biddies’ quite simply refused to throw in the towel.
They edged ahead again when Eoin Magee fired over their first point of the half with 10 minutes remaining but it looked to be of no avail when Hamilton converted a ‘45’ and another from closer to goal to leave it all square with only two minutes remaining.
Back came St. Brigid’s and Dobbin edged them ahead before Aidan McNeill struck an excellent free from a difficult angle to secure the points despite a later point from Joseph Gibson for an Ardoyne side who will feel they might have taken something from the game.
Last week Cloughmills lost their opening game to St. Malachy’s but on the evidence of what we saw tonight they are more than capable of holding their own in the division and should get better and better as the season progresses.
The celebrations after suggested that they certainly enjoyed the occasion and the future looks bright for the boys from the village.
Naomh Brid: 1 Cathaoir McFerran, 2 Rian Dobbin, 3 Sean McKendry, 4 Jack McDowall, 5 Johnny Duffin, 6 Gerard O’Mullan, 7 Kevin O’Boyle, 8 Ryan Mark, 9 PJ McBride, 10 Eoin Magee, 11 Aidan McNeill, 12 Dara Watterson, 13 Dara McGivern, 14 Niall McFadden, 15 Eoin Dobbin
Subs: 18 Stephen Smith,
Ardoyne: 1 Tiernan Hughes, 2 Cormac Curran, 24 Michael McGreevey, 19 Odhran Mullan, 20 Ciaran Lopes, 5 Joseph Gibson, 6 Pearse Marley, 7 Finnen Wall O’Brien, 8 Oisin Maskey, 9 Gary McKiernan, 10 Odhran McKee, 11 Daniel Moore, 12 Oisin Coulard, 13 Patric McGreevey, 14 Fiontan Lagan, 15 Brendan Hamilton
Referee: Joe McCavana (Naomh Comhghall)
TO VIEW MORE PICS FROM TONIGHT’S HISTORIC GAME CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW