Antrim Graham Tarmac Junior Football Championship
St Brigids Cloughmills 1-06 | O’Donnells 3-11
Venue: Cloughmills | Date: Saturday, 5 September 2026
Match report: Gerard Kelly | Photos: Dominic Kelly
O’Donnells produced a clinical, goal-laden display to see off St Brigids Cloughmills by eleven points in the Antrim Junior Football Championship at Cloughmills on Saturday. Green flags from Fionnbar McKernan, Pearse Rice and substitute Ciaran McKissock did the bulk of the damage in a 3-11 to 1-06 victory that was, in truth, all but decided inside the opening quarter.
Championship football is unforgiving of slow starts, and Cloughmills learned that lesson the hard way. The Belfast side arrived in North Antrim with real intent and had two goals on the board before the game was twelve minutes old, leaving the hosts with a mountain to climb from an early stage. To their credit, Cloughmills never stopped working, and Anthony Doran in particular battled manfully with a six-point haul that accounted for every one of his side’s scores bar the goal. But the gulf in firepower was evident throughout, and O’Donnells always had another gear whenever the home side threatened to build momentum.
For the visitors, this was a performance built on ruthlessness in front of goal and a spread of scorers that gave Cloughmills no single target to shut down. Six different players found the range, three of them raised green flags, and the ease with which they created chances in the opening twenty minutes will have pleased their management enormously.
A Blistering Start From The Visitors
If O’Donnells had scripted the opening quarter themselves, they could scarcely have written it better. Patrick Meenan set the tone with a point inside the first minute, and the visitors did not let up from there. Cloughmills were still finding their feet when the first hammer blow landed on five minutes, McKernan finishing to the net to give O’Donnells a 1-01 to no score lead before the home side had registered an attack of any note.
Cailean Walsh, who would go on to be one of the visitors’ most influential figures, added a point on 6 to widen the gap, and the pattern was set. Cloughmills finally got off the mark through Doran on 9, a welcome score that briefly steadied the ship, but Walsh replied within sixty seconds to cancel it out.
Then came the second goal. On 12 minutes, Rice found space inside and finished emphatically to stretch the lead to 2-03 to 0-01, and when Padraig McKissock tacked on another point two minutes later, O’Donnells were nine clear and Cloughmills were in serious trouble. Fourteen minutes gone, and the home side had been outscored by 2-04 to 0-01.
Watterson Goal Sparks Brief Revival
Cloughmills needed something to lift the home support, and they got it on 17 minutes when Dara Watterson found the net. It was the spark the hosts had been crying out for, cutting the deficit to six and injecting some belief into a side that had looked shell-shocked up to that point.
O’Donnells, though, were unmoved. McKernan pointed on 19 to restore some breathing room, and on 21 minutes Walsh produced the standout individual score of the half, landing a superb two-point effort from outside the arc to push the visitors nine clear once more at 207 to 1-01. It was a cruel response to Cloughmills’ revival and a reminder of the visitors’ scoring threat from all distances.
To their credit, the hosts kept going. Doran, who was carrying the Cloughmills attack almost single-handedly, split the posts twice in quick succession on 22 and 24 minutes, and those were the final scores of the half. Cloughmills had, in fact, outscored O’Donnells in the closing stages of the period, and they went in at the break trailing 2-07 to 1-03, a sevenpoint gap that felt considerably more manageable than it had at the quarter-hour mark.
Cloughmills Chip Away Before McKissock Kills It Off
The opening spell of the second half was a far tighter affair. Both defences tightened up and scores were at a premium, with Rice edging O’Donnells further ahead on 35 before Doran responded for Cloughmills on 38 to keep the gap at seven. For a period, the home side looked capable of making the closing stages uncomfortable for their opponents.
Any lingering hope of a Cloughmills fightback, however, was extinguished on 46 minutes.
Ciaran McKissock, introduced from the bench, made an immediate impact when he finished O’Donnells’ third goal of the afternoon, pushing the lead out to 3-08 to 1-04 and effectively settling the contest. It was a goal that summed up the difference between the sides: O’Donnells created chances of that quality with relative ease, while Cloughmills had to work tirelessly for every score.
Meenan added his second point on 52 to push the gap into double figures, and the visitors were able to see out the remainder of the game in relative comfort.
Rice Has The Final Say
Doran refused to let his side go quietly. The Cloughmills forward landed further points on 55 and 57 to bring his personal tally to six and, in the process, ensured the scoreboard would carry some respectability for the home side. It was a performance of real character in a lost cause.
But O’Donnells finished as they had started. Rice pointed on 58 and again on 60 to complete a fine individual haul of 1-3 and round off a comfortable eleven-point win, sending the Belfast side into the next stage of the championship with a real spring in their step.
Doran Carries The Fight For Cloughmills
While the afternoon belonged to O’Donnells, the individual display of Anthony Doran deserves recognition. The Cloughmills number 15 scored six of his side’s seven scores, kept the hosts in the contest for as long as was realistically possible, and never once let his standards drop even as the game slipped away. Dara Watterson’s goal on 17 was the only other Cloughmills score of the day, and the reliance on Doran will be a concern for the home management as they reflect on the defeat.
Elsewhere, captain Rian Dobbin worked hard at midfield, and there were honest shifts throughout the Cloughmills side, but the early concession of two goals meant that they were always playing catch-up against a team with far more scoring options.
The Verdict
O’Donnells were worthy winners, and the spread of their scoring told its own story. Rice (13), McKernan (1-1) and Walsh (0-4) all caused problems for the Cloughmills defence, while Meenan (0-2), Padraig McKissock (0-1) and Ciaran McKissock’s goal from the bench rounded off a well-balanced attacking display. Three goals in a championship match away from home is a return any side would gladly take, and the manner in which they responded every time Cloughmills threatened to build momentum was the mark of a side with genuine ambitions in this competition.
For Cloughmills, there is no shame in losing to a side of this quality, and Doran’s six points and Watterson’s goal were the clear bright spots. But conceding two goals inside the opening twelve minutes left them with far too much to do, and the closing stages of the first half, when they outscored the visitors and looked capable of competing, only served to highlight what might have been with a sharper start. If their championship is to go any further, they will need to find that intensity from the first whistle rather than the seventeenth minute.
ST BRIGIDS CLOUGHMILLS: Eoin Dobbin; Jack McDowell, Brendan O’Mullan, Conal
McCurdy; Jonny Duffin, Gerard O’Mullan, Dylan Grieve; Rian Dobbin (capt), Michael O’Mullan; PJ McBride, Reece Watt, Dara Watterson (1-0); James O’Boyle, Ryan Donnelly, Anthony Doran (0-6).
O’DONNELLS: Conor Murphy; Kevin Kennedy, Connor Walsh, Sean Smylie; Jonathan
McKenna, Scott Thompson, Patrick Meenan (0-2); Gearoid McKernan, Richard McAvoy; Paul Moore, Cailean Walsh (0-4), Pearse Rice (1-3); Sean Pat Donnelly, Padraig McKissock (0-1), Fionnbar McKernan (1-1). Also used: Ciaran McKissock (1-0).
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