Lamh Dhearg 0-9 Rockcorry 0-4

Ulster Club Football League

Thursday 4^th February 2010

Team & Scorers

Jamie Smith, Pauric Reilly, Anthony Tate, Garry Calvert, Stephen McGuirk, Keith Daly (0-1), Colin Quinn, Mark Daly (0-1), Martin Carroll, Keelan Clerkin, Johnny Reilly, Coiln Reilly, Paul McKeown, Noel Carroll (0-2) and Dwayne Rooney.

Subs Mark McGuirk for Coiln Reilly, Liam Connolly for Keelan Clerkin, Cathal Sheridan for Mark Daly (injured), Declan McCullagh for Colin Quinn, Shane Wynne for Dwayne Rooney.

A handful of ‘die hard’ supporters decided to brave the bitterly cold weather conditions last Thursday evening when our senior team travelled to Belfast to play Lamh Dhearg in  the first game of the Ulster club football league.

Played in wet, slippery and very windy conditions Lamh Dhearg had the better of the opening exchanges and opened the scoring in the 8^th minute with a fine point from the left wing and doubled their lead four minutes later when they notched over a free kick.

Our real first attack came in the 15^th minute, when Keith Daly made a good burst up the field and set up Johnny Reilly, however his attempt at the posts was slightly wide.  We eventually got on the scoreboard when Noel Carroll tapped over a neat point in the 18^th minute after excellent attacking football by Garry Calvert.

During the next five minutes both teams missed some very easy scoring chances and when Noel Carroll was brought down on the 21 metre line, Mark Daly was on hand to sail over the resulting free kick to leave the sides level after twenty five minutes of play.  

At this stage of the game it looked like we found our second wind but moments later Lamh Dhearg set up another attack and notched over points in the 26^th and 28^th minute to open up a two point lead.

With only seconds remaining of the first half we made a last attack which resulted in Dwayne Rooney shot at goal saved by the Lamh Dhearg goalie. The half time score Lamh Dhearg 0-4 Rockcorry 0-2.

At the interval, team management made two substitutions with Mark McGuirk and Liam Connolly coming on for Coiln Reilly and Keelan Clerkin respectively.

On the restart, Lamh Dhearg extended their lead in the 4^th minute when they notched over a free kick. We suffered a further setback minutes later as our midfielder Mark Daly picked up an ankle injury and had to retire early. Cathal Sheridan came into the game and soon got stuck into the action and with some fine attacking play Keith Daly was set up and shot over a fine point from the right wing in the 12th minute to close the deficit back to 0-2 points.

As the game progressed Lamh Dhearg started to apply pressure and dominated the next ten minutes and opened up a five point lead when they scored three points, all from free kicks, in the 13^th, 18^th and 20^th minute. Indeed the lead could off been a lot more only for a great save by our keeper Jamie Smith in the 17^th minute to deny Lamh Dhearg a goal.

The final ten minutes of the game both teams had opportunities to score and each team exchanged points in the last couple of minutes to leave the final score Lamh Dhearg 0-9 Rockcorry 0-4.

On reflection, it was a good, tight game of football and while the final score shows a five point victory for Lamh Dhearg it doesn’t reflect how tough the exchanges were. There were times when we were our own worst enemies with several promising attacks that led to nothing due to over-elaborating and some players not taking the responsibility to go for their own scores.

Overall the management can be quite pleased with the level of commitment and effort shown by the players.