ACHL Division 2
Kickham’s Creggan 0-17 Ballycastle 2nd’s 0-13
Report: JoeRice
The Loughshore lads welcomed MacUilin’s on a bright Sunday afternoon. Many of the home side supporters would have seldom seen black & amber jerseys lined out on their field. Nevertheless, Ballycastle’s Second Team were here looking for their first win of the League Competition.
First to score was Conall McGee pointing from play in the 2nd minute and from the initial stages Ballycastle dominated by winning most of the turnovers, but they failed to convert these into scores.
Slowly the home side steadied themselves and their first score came from Morgan Nelson on the 7th minute, adding a further 2 converted frees on the 8th and the 11th minute. The visitors responded with 3 on target frees, one from James Blackwell and 2 from Feargal McKiernan on the 12th, 14th and 16th minute respectively. With 16 minutes on the clock, MacUilin’s were in front.
Creggan drew level with a fine point from play from Sean Duffin, but this was cancelled out as Gavin McToal edged the visitors’ ahead on the 23rd minute. It was level again on the 26th minute when Rory McCann scored his 1st of 4 points of the contest before Cormac Dallas put the visitors 2 in front with 2 superb frees from distance.
The sides were level once again as Morgan Nelson and Teddy McKeown added to the home side’s tally. The final 2 scores from the 1st half were from Rory McCann, Creggan, and one from Feargal McKiernan, MacUilin’s, to leave it all square at half time on 8 points apiece. Referee, Chris Brown, got proceedings underway in the 2nd half in a good natured encounter where he had little use for his notebook. Creggan started the 2nd half better while MacUilin’s struggled for scores being guilty of several wides.
Creggan’s marksman, Morgan Nelson, converted 3 frees and when his teammate, Sean Duffin, added a point from play it gave the home side a 4 point cushion. It was 11 minutes into the 2nd half before Feargal McKiernan got MacUilin’s 1st point, however, at this stage they were struggling to close the gap.
The home side’s confidence grew when Morgan Nelson and Rory McCann added 2 further points to lead by 4 with 15 minutes remaining on the clock. Ballycastle’s Feargal McKiernan got his 4th point of the game to leave just one score between them, but Creggan surged ahead with Mick Maguire, Rory McCann & Keelan McCann securing 3 unanswered points without reply.
As we headed towards the last 5 minutes plus extra time, Ballycastle threw everything at the Lough shore lads looking for the goals that never came, but they did add 3 further points from Callum Campbell, Luke Connolly and James Bakewell to narrow the gap, however, they had just run out of time.
The last score of the game was from Morgan Nelson’s ‘65’ to give the home side a 4 point cushion and their 1st win of the campaign.
Creggan: No.1 Conor McCann, No.2 Paedar McGuckian, No.3 Dillan Hamfey, No.4 Sennan O’Boyle, No.5 Aidan McIlwee, No.6 Keelan McCann(0.01), No.7 Aidan McKeown(0.01), No.8 Sam Maguire, No.9 Daniel Dornan, No.10 Lee Johnston, No.11 Mick Maguire, No.12 Sean Duffin (0.02), No.13 Ronan McGuckian, No.14 Morgan Nelson (0.07), No.15 Sean McAuley(0.01), No.21 Thomas McCann, No.30 Rory McCann(0.04).
Ballycastle: No.1 Anthony Mullan, No.2 Conor Mooney, No.3 James Bakewell(0.04),No.4 Oisin McAuley, No.5 Oisin Donnelly, No.6 Cormac Donnelly, No.7 Jack McGowan, No.8 Conal Magee, No.9 Luke Connolly(0.01), No.10 Tadhg Donnelly, No.11 Callum Campbell(0.01), No.12 Feargal McKiernan(0.03), No.13 Cormac Dallas(0.02), No.14 Dermot Donnelly, No.15 Gavin McToal(0.01), No.17 Eoin Boylan, No.18. Niall McGarry, No.19 Rory McShane, No.20 Thomas McIlroy.
Referee: Chris Brown
TO SEE MORE OF CLAIRE FAWLS PHOTOS FROM THIS GAME (PLUS THE HALF TIME GAMES) CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW
https://myalbum.com/album/fmRKmYbbBgxUKY/?invite=b8443064-f5ba-42fe-a83b-7987ae5437bf