‘Another important three points’ says boss Higginbotham
Irvinestown Wanderers 2 Augher Stars 1
IRVINESTOWN Wanderers maintained the pressure on Omagh Hospitals at the top of Division Two as they came from behind to defeat Augher Stars. A Sean Clear equaliser two minutes before the break cancelled out Mark Kerr’s early strike for Augher, and Christopher Lyons netted the winner after an hour to extend Wanderers’ unbeaten league run to five matches.
Irvinestown Manager
Darren Higginbotham was delighted with the attitude of his team as they continued their winning streak.
“It was another important three points,” he acknowledged. “We are getting games in consecutive weeks now, and we are trying to build a bit of momentum. Saturday was a hard-fought three points against a team that I am confident will take points off others.
“It was a massive three points and I felt we deserved it. We created chances, and in reality we probably should have taken more of our chances.
“We came back from 1-0 down and it is positive to see the lads responding to that bit of adversity, because that reaction to going behind is important if you want to be chatting about winning leagues. Full credit to the lads.”
Augher kicked off the match unbeaten since their promotion to the second division and they looked as though they were on the way to extending that run when Captain Mark Kerr put them ahead.
Irvinestown continued to press forward in search of an equaliser, and Joey Millar came close to scoring when the ball dropped to him inside the penalty area, but his shot cleared the crossbar.
With half time approaching they finally made the breakto through when Augher failed to clear a corner kick and Sean Clear was on hand to stab the ball home from close range.
In the second half Ronan Ormsby came close to putting Irvinestown ahead when he ran onto a pass from Liam
Murphy and fired a shot on target from 18 yards out, but Conor Mcanenly in the Stars’ goal made the save.
The decisive goal arrived an hour into the game when Wanderers’ Christopher Lyons cut inside the defender and from just inside the penalty area curled a shot past the keeper and into the top-right corner of Augher’s net.
The win keeps Irvinestown level on points with Hospitals at the top of the league table with five games played.