Hat-trick for Wright in big Greenfield victory

THE North Louth Winter League resumed on Sunday morning last when Greenfield travelled to Faughart to see who could take the spoils.

There was a minute silence for Rampart’s manager Conor Neacy’s dad, Brendan, who had passed away earlier in the week.

It was a wet Sunday morning and the game started evenly enough with both teams jockeying for position. Faughart through Owenie O’Hare and his brother Tommy were in the engine room of midfield trying to out muscle Greenfields duo of Joe Needham and Gavin (mini) Lennon.

The O’Hare brothers were picking out target men Aidan McCabe and Robbie O’Hanlon and looking for willing runners off these two. But through the Greenfield centehalf pairing of Aidan McGuiness and Ger Collins they had the answers to this more often the not.

Greenfield through tricky winger Chris Berrill and the willing runner Lee Wright started to create more of an offensive period in which they were pinning back Faughart. Wright stretched the back line on numerous occasions and forced a number of corners. It was from one of these corners that Wright scored with a bullet header from a cross fizzed in from Berrill.

Wright and Greenfield’s second came from a through ball from Pat Conway and Wright coolly finished passed the on rushing ‘ keeper. His hat trick was complete minutes later and was just deserts for him and Greenfield as they were playing some great open expansive football.

But with all their dominance, Greenfield were caught a few times with counter attacks and through this Faughart scored a goal from Maurice Coffey. Good play from McCabe released O’Hanlon and his inch perfect cross found Coffey who easily slotted home and that’s how the first half finished, 3-1.

The second half started with Greenfield dominating the ball. Faughart seemed to run out of steam and ideas as their target men were being kept quiet. The ever increasing presence of Joe Needham ran the show for Greenfield. They prodded and probed Faughart for weaknesses and when Berrill was released with a one on one with the keeper, there was only one winner.

Then neat play and a raking pass from Aaron Lawless found Berrill free and his cross shot was turned in by the returning Dave McAllister to make it 5-1 to Greenfield.

A good days work for them after the winter break and a great three points against a dangerous team. For Faughart they should take heart in a fine display though they came up short. They will cause problems for a lot of teams on another day and if they had taken some of their chances the result could have been different.

In other results, Carlingford beat Castletown and Bridgeside beat Haynestown/Doolargy.

The fixtures in the North Louth Winter League for this coming week are as follows; Castletown v Greenfield; Haynestown/Doolargy v Carlingford, Ramparts v Ravensdale; Faughart v Bridgeside.