Round-up of all the local soccer action
IT was late but Aaron Kehoe fortuitous cross come shot that ended in the opposite corner of the net handed Rosslare Rangers a point over a desperately unlucky Kilmore United side in this opening day Premier Division clash at Rosslare on Sunday morning.
What differentiated this from their games last season, was the difficulty in coping with opening day syndrome, as the opening 45 minutes bore out.
It was a half utterly dominated by mistakes. Indeed neither side looked like creating a score, let alone scoring, and it was the misdirected pass that prevented this rather than any excellent defending.
While Kilmore United could do little right in this opening half, the home side showed a reluctance up front to take on the opposition despite having total control of the ball in midfield, with the result that keeper Kevin Keating was seldom called upon to deal with a direct shot on goal.
Through the opening 20 minutes it was just a case of both sides teasing one another out, particularly as they looked totally new sides in personnel from last season, and this could be attributed to their reluctance to commit players forward.
Rosslare did manage to create a chance after 16 minutes when Aaron Kehoe having beaten the keeper to a long ball, cut inside, but his lobbed effort towards a gaping goal was cleared off the line by the recovering Darren Naughton.
This was as close as one came to goal until the 36th minute when Aaron Kehoe drilled a fine 25 metre shot just over the top.
With Kilmore restricted to a couple of long range efforts, Rosslare looked like taking the lead on 40 minutes when Aaron Kehoe broke clear but he was brought down outside the area by Gary Moore, with only the keeper to beat.
While Moore was yellow carded for his efforts the free-kick proved fruitless being driven into the wall, leaving it 0-0 at the interval.
The second half saw Kilmore hold out for a surprisingly long time, after opening the half impressively with fine efforts from Devon Furlong and Darren Naughton through the opening five second half minutes, that flew narrowly over the top.
Then came the breakthrough totally against the run of play.
Sub Alan Colgate peeled away off marker Gary Redmond, who in the process brought the attacker down.
Colgate picked himself up to drill home the penalty giving his side a 0-1 lead against the run of play.
Belatedly, Rosslare got that breakthrough which they had threatened for so long, with Aaron Kehoe floating over a cross from the right they escaped the outstretched fingertips of keeper Keating to nestle in the opposite corner of the net making it 1-1.
Both sides pressed for a winner but will be disappointed with their lack of creativity up front. ROSSLARE RANGERS: Stephen Cogley, Graham Maloney, Dave Wickham, Gary Redmond, Niall Walsh, Sean Stewart, Mark Furlong, Danny Ennis, Aaron Kehoe, Lee Donoghue, Paul Culleton. Subs: Jason Ellard, Dylan Parle, Tyghe O’Reilly. KILMORE UNITED: Kevin Keating, Darren Naughton, Ryan Bates, Gary Moore, Luke Jordan, William Murphy, Jason Malone, Daniel Lambert, Devon Furlong, Dave Millar, Graeme Healy. Subs: Alan Colgate, Sean Hogan, Liam Shannon. REFEREE: Jimmy O’Neill.