FINLAY GOAL IS JUST ACE FOR EOGHAN

EOGHAN MCGONIGLE saluted a Joe Finlay wonder goal after his overhead kick sealed a big win for St Oliver Plunkett against Tullycarnet on Saturday.

The defeat was a first in the league this season for the East Belfast men, and provided a boost to the hosts’ title hopes as Plunkett leapt above Greenisland into fourth place.

In a fiercely competitive game between two teams with genuine aspirations for the title, it was always likely it would take a little piece of magic to settle the contest.

And for Mcgonigle, a coach at the Lenadoon outfit alongside manager Peter Murray, it was good that the match-winning intervention came from the former Newington striker as he settles into his new club and acclimatises to the demands of Division 2A.

“Joe’s done rightly since he’s came in. I think he’s found it tough enough, I think he’s surprised himself how tough 2A is, but he came up with a big goal for us yesterday,” said Mcgonigle.

“It was a good win because they are always up there challenging, they are always one of the bigger teams in 2A.

“It was a very tight game, we started well and got our goal and got to half-time, and then we came out in the second half and they threw the kitchen sink at us almost.

“It was a tough old slog, a good old battle.” Plunkett are currently averaging more than 2.4 points a game, bettered only by Aquinas sitting above them in third, and could overhaul both second-placed Tullycarnet and first-placed Woodvale should they make the most of their games in hand.

This weekend, they travel to Woodvale for the first instalment of a back-to-back double-header against the league leaders, and with the top of the table so congested, Mcgonigle knows the outcomes of the head-to-heads with their fellow contenders for 2A will prove crucial in the final analysis.

“At the start of the season, a lot of teams got the weaker teams out of the way, but obviously now the new year is over us, from now until the end of the season, they are all big games, we have Woodvale back-to-back, Aquinas, Tullycarnet and so on so there is a fair run here now of big games and people will be taking points off everybody,” he said.

“It will be interesting. Last year, Suffolk and Rosemount were stand-out sides but this year, there are four or five teams there who could all do it.”