Rovers spoils Glyde’s return
A strong second half display helped St Mochtas shake off the challenge of Glen Emmets as the Louth Village side enjoyed a winning start to their campaign.
The visitors to Tullyallen on Sunday morning held a slender one-point lead at the break but moved up a gear in the second half and a goal from Danny Kindlon helped them run out winners by seven points in the end.
It was a satisfactory outing for the Mochtas from an attacking point of view as five of their six starting forwards got on the scoresheet. Not surprisingly Declan Byrne was prominent with four points but his side will be encouraged by the fact that emerging players such as Stephen McCooey and Gerry Garland also contributed to the scoring. GLYDE Rangers made an unhappy return to Division 2 football suffering a 14 point defeat to a well-tuned Hunterstown outfit on Sunday morning.
Three first half goals, two from Glen Matthews who finished with a total of 2-5, killed off the game and the result was never seriously in doubt as the visitors led by 3-3 to 0-3 at the break.
Matthews hit the net in the sixth minute and repeated the trick within 60 seconds to put his side firmly in control while Ryan Burns added a third five minutes before the break.
Hunterstown were physically much stronger in most areas and could possibly have won by more, but chose to empty their bench in the second half.
The game saw very little between the teams in the opening 30 minutes as they traded scores throughout. However, it was the Louth Village men who managed to get their noses in front at the break as they led by 0-6 to 0-5. James Butler did most of the scoring for the Emmets as he finished with five points to his name.
Emmets battled well in that first period but they were unable to sustain the effort after the restart and managed just three more points.
ST MOCHTAS: Fergus English; Liam Lawlor, Philip Englishby, David Lennon; Darren McMahon, Andrew English, Cormac Callan; Eamonn O’Neill 0-2, Gareth O’Reilly; Barry Mulholland 0-1, Brendan Duff, Gerry Garland 0-3; Stephen McCooey 0-2, Danny Kindlon 1-0, Declan Byrne 0-4.
GLEN EMMETS: Conor Kelly; Tom Grimes, Gordon Healy, Keith Boylan; Stephen Healy, Sam Kenny (0-1), Jamie Farnan; Andrew Mooney, Ronan Grufferty (0-1); Isacc Walsh, James Butler (0-5), Conor Grimes (0-1); Keelan O’Neil, Keith Lynch, David Bracken. Subs: Sean Byrne for I Walsh, E. Lynch for G Healy, Evan English for J Farnan, Ben Hilliard for K O’Neill.
Glyde never created a goal chance over the course of the game but will rue kicking a total of seven wides that could have made it more competitive.
All Glyde’s scores came from Brian Duffy (3) and Trevor O’Brien (2) with four of the points coming from frees, while Paul Carrie contributed three points for Hunterstown.
HUNTERSTOWN ROVERS: Niall Carrie; Brian Matthews, Richard Taaffe, Martin Lennon; Alan Matthews, Patrick Taaffe, Robert McNiece; Tony McKenna, Ryan Ward; Brendan Lennon, Paul Carrie 0-3, Conor Matthews; Glen Matthews 2-5, Ryan Burns 1-2, Robbie Brennan. Subs: Eddie Burke for A Matthews, Mark Brennan for R Brennan, Paddy Mooney for C Matthews, Richard Cunningham for R McNeice.
GLYDE RANGERS: David Brennan; Conor McCullough, Cein Sheridan, Gerard Farrell; Mark O’Brien, Paul Noone, Peter Duffy; Ciaran Sheridan, Dion Conlon; Niall Sharkey, Conor Sheridan, Fiachra Sheridan; Trevor O’Brien 0-2, Brian Duffy 0-3, Aaron Devlin. Sub: Niall Bird.