Report and Photographs: Brian McKee
ACFL Division 3
Ardoyne 1-10 O’Donnell’s 2-13
On a glorious sunny evening, the men from the Whiterock travelled across to North Belfast and brought home two well-deserved points.
The opening 15 minutes of the game did not augur well for O’Donnells. Ardoyne’s Oisin Maskey caught a ball on the edge of the O’Donnells square, passed it to Cahal Keown, who rifled it into the back of the O’D’s net. Cormac Mullan followed up with a lovely score off a free for his first of 9 points on the evening. O’D’s lacked cohesion and were running up against a strong Ardoyne defence.
The tide turned in the middle of the opening half and O’D’s eventually found their rhythm and the home side struggled to keep a fast moving O’D’s attack at bay. Fionnbar McKernan opened the scoring for the visitors with a pointed free. This was followed by seven different players getting their names on the scoreboard for the Whiterock side, including a Rory Beggan impersonation for goalkeeper, Conor Murphy, as he sent over the first of two 60s for scores.
Ardoyne struggled to respond with their only further point in the first half coming from a beautiful two pointer from Cormac Mullan.
Half-Time: Ardoyne 1-03 Cardinal O’Donnells 1-08
As in the opening half, Ardoyne opened the second half scoring with a point from Oisin Maskey. While the scoring was more evenly matched in the second half, O’Ds were very much in control of the pace of the game. Cormac Mullan produced a great display of free taking but Ardoyne were increasingly frustrated at the inability to thwart the O’Donnell’s game plan and claw back their lead.
The visitors kept their composure and slowed the game down, but with 10 minutes remaining, they raced through the Ardoyne defence. Hughes produced a save taken from his top drawer, only to see Paul Moore put the ball in the back of the net from the rebound. At this stage of the game, Ardoyne were finding it difficult to break out of their own half and the O’Ds left with the spoils. O’Donnerll’s will be particularly happy with 9 different players getting scores, while Ardoyne will be frustrated at not being able to adapt to the visitor’s game plan.
Ciceam Ard Eoin: 1. Tiernan Hughes 2. Cormac Curran 3. Micheál McGreevy 4. Conor Magee 5. Joe Gibson, 6. Pearse Marley 7. James Og McAuley 8. Gary McKernan 9. Oisin Maskey (0-01) 10. Odhran McKee 11. Daniel Moore 12. Cormac Mullan(0-09, 3f) 13. Oisin Copeland 14. Cahal Keown (1-0) 15. Eoghan Craig, Padraig McGreevy, Odhran Mullan, Aidan McConnell, Eoin Fennell, Fiontain Lagan, Ciarán Lopes, Ruairi Teague, Caolan Hardy
CLG Uí Dhonaill: 1. Conor Murphy (0-02) 2. Sean Lavery(0-01) 3. Sean Smylie 4. Jonathan McKenna (0-02) 5. Kevin Kennedy 7. Scott Thompson 8. John Rafferty 9. Paddy Matthews (0-01)10. Joseph Wilson (0-01) 12. Paul Moore (2-01) 13. Ciaran McKissock(0-01) 15. Fionnbar McKernan0-03, 3f) 34. Cailean Walsh (0-01) 35. Fergal McNerney 36. Connor Walsh
Referee: Eamonn Hamill
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