Match Report

Aghaderg v Mitchels

Date Filed: 18 May 2017

Aghaderg continued with there league campaign on Friday night last when they played Newry Mitchels in Ballyvarley.  The reds won the toss and decided to play with the advantage of a strong easterly breeze blowing straight down the field towards the Scarva end. They had been forced to make three changes as James McGrath, Graeme Donaghy and Keelin Doyle were unavailable. They were replaced by Ciaran McShane , Stevie Comiskey and Kieran Davis.

The Reds were slow to settle and Mitchels were finding it easy to dominate possession. Luckily the visitors were finding it difficult to turn this possession into scores as they kicked a number of wides into the stiff breeze. Mitchels opened the scoring with a point from play after three minutes but were immediately pegged back by C McAvoy's  first point after a pass from S Comiskey. The first half continued to follow the rather lacklustre pattern of Aghaderg attempting to retain possession in their own half by persisting in  playing the ball across the field and backwards to a team mate. Often these attempts broke down, Mitchels regained possession and kicked the ball wide, Aghaderg played a short kick out and the pattern was repeated. The reds were unable to generate any forward momentum, seldom attempted to use the strong breeze to release their forwards but half time arrived with them leading by one point as C McAvoy added four more points, two from play and two from frees awarded for fouls on P McGrath and S Comiskey.

Half Time Aghaderg 0-5 Mitchels 0-4.

The second half commenced with Mitchels continuing to win the majority of possession and using the elements to launch early attacks on the home defence. It proved to be a difficult thirty minutes but P Colgan and his defence worked hard to keep the scores down. Mitchels scored 1 - 10 in the second half  while Aghaderg's highlight was an excellent goal finished to the net by L Murray after P McGrath had made a determined sixty metre run out of defence, exchanged passes with C McAvoy and set up his midfield partner for his second goal in successive matches.

A disappointing result and a disappointing performance but the Reds will get an opportunity to get back on track when they travel to St Michaels on Friday.

Team: Paul Colgan Ryan Strain Thomas Lennon Ciaran Connolly, Kieran McShane,  Aaron McAvoy, Christopher Lennon Paul McGrath Louis Murray(1-0) Kieran Davis, Michael McGrath, Rory McShane, Gerard Rice, Stevie Comiskey, Christopher McAvoy(0-5). Subs:,  Michael Lennon, Steve McCann, Ruari O'Neill, Ruari Conway, Shaun Savage.