Ballinascreen 0-06 Swatragh 1-10

Davitts Record Deserved Victory

In their penultimate league encounter Swatragh travelled to face Ballinascreen at McGlinchey Park. In a committed encounter Swatragh produced their best performance of the season to record second victory of the season.

Inside the first five minutes Swatragh registered the opening score of the game and for the remainder of the game they never fell behind against a ‘Screen team struggling for scores up front.

Swatragh’s intentions were clear from the start as manager Kevin McNaughton selected Michael Conway and Ruairi Convery in the centre of his attack. This selection seemed to offer greater freedom to the other Swatragh forwards as the ‘Screen defenders seemed more worried about covering the “Big Men”.

The first half was for the main part evenly contested and at the interval Swatragh led by a point 0-05 to 0-04. However the Davitts should have been further ahead having missed some frees and squandered two clear goal opportunities.

The Screen were also guilty of missing some clear point opportunities in the opening period with some wasteful finishing, but it was still clear that Swatragh deserved to be well in front.

On the restart Swatragh once again made the brighter start getting the opening score of the half and gave themselves some breathing space when Kirk’ lashed a lose ball to the screen net.

At no stage during the remainder of the match did it look as though Swatragh would relinquish their lead. Any threat mounted by the ‘Screen forward were either dealt with by a hard working Davitt backline or squandered with their forwards guilty of some profligate finishing.

Anything that did manage to evade the Swatragh defence was comfortably dealt with by Seamus McAlary who put in a confident display in goals, a confidence that spread to the defenders in front of him.

As the game drew to a close Swatragh took advantage of the ‘Screen pressing forward to tag on a couple of additional scores to leave themselves with a final seven point winning margin.
Final Score – Swatragh 1-10 Ballinascreen 0-06

This was an excellent performance from the Swatragh team who appear to be coming in to form at the right stage of the season. The defence coped well with a pacy attack and the forwards acted as a more cohesive unit than in earlier games, although the may have liked to have registered a few more scores.

Best for Swatragh - Cathal McQuillan & Stephen O'Kane

Team: S. McAlary, N. O’Doherty, S. Bradley, S. O’Kane, D. McNicholl, C. Quinn, S. O’Kane, D. McGuckin, C. McQuillan, E. McGuckin, M. Conway, N. McAtamney, D. McNicholl, R. Convery, M. Kirkpatrick.
Subs: A. Diamond for N. McAtamney (HT), P. McQuillan for S. O’Kane