First half brace of goals sets us off well for 2020


First half brace of goals sets us off well for 2020

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First half brace of goals sets us off well for 2020

March 06, 2020

Killavullen and Grange played this game out of sequence, under lights in Mourne Abbey last night in the Avondhu Division 1 Football league. Both teams were ring rusty of sorts, with it being the 1st game for Killavullen, though Grange have already got points on the board, on account of a good win against Kilshannig.


Killavullen started very strongly, and kicked some excellent points, in the early stages of the 1st half. Jack O Connor opening the scoring in the 1st minute, and followed up with another point in the 3rd. Killavullen went further ahead in the 5th minute when Michael O Rourke, at the edge of the square, scored a goal.  Grange hit back and got a good point of their own in the 7th minute but that was cancelled out by two excellent points from distance, initially from Padraig Looney, and then from Liam Cronin in the 9th minute.  A feature of the game at this stage was the retention of possession, and releasing the ball to a player in a better position. Grange, got to grips with the pace of the game, and impressed with their work ethic. They scored in the 12th minute and again in the 15th at a period, when we were wasteful, and spurned some scoring opportunities.  Grange scored an excellent point in the 19th minute, when they availed of one of the new rules for 2020, the advanced mark. The inside forward raced out to a good centre, gathered it, and raised his hand to signal his intent, and from the resultant kick, calmly slotted it over the bar, highlighting the effectiveness of using that tactic occasionally. Grange scored again in the 21st minute to bring their tally to 0-05 as against 1-04 for us at this stage, and that score line reflected poorly on the amount of possession that we had. We got a major score before half time though, when good work from our youthful half back line worked the ball up field, and released Mick again, who found the back of the net again to leave us leading at the break 2-04 to 0-05.


 

Liam Cronin scored another delightful point after the resumption, and that was followed by Jack scoring his 3rd point of the night in the 5th minute of the half. Grange got another back from a free in the 9th minute but we cancelled out that score when the newly introduced Gary Lane, found Padraig Looney in isolation, and Padraig finished expertly to bring up our score to 3-06 in the 11th minute of the half. Billy Norris, playing at centre forward, did very few things wrong all night, and an awful lot of ball went through his hands, and he laid it off very effectively, often to Brian Cotter, who excelled , in coming forward from the half back line. Billy scored in the 15th minute and Padraig added to that tally in the 18th. Grange got a point back, but Killavullen had made some changes that worked out well for us. Cian O Connor got a goal for us, when he cleverly stayed around the small parallelogram and he was at hand when a ball came off the post, and was unlucky with another effort. Brian Cotter got the next score from one of his forward forays, after a net exchange of passes with his older brother, Grange got a free back, before we finished out the scoring with two further points, from Brian and again from Billy.


Our Management team of Eamonn, Dick, Willy, John and Cathal wound have been pleased to open with a win, after months of being unable to train on the grass pitches in Killavullen. We, as a club are grateful to Clyda rovers for accommodating us, with their pitch and lights, and to Grange for travelling. Killavullen looked good down the middle, the spine of the team, with willing runners on the fringes, so, in all, a pleasing debut game for 2020.


John O Regan refereed the game, when the appointed official did not show up. The game was sporting and without incident, so a gentle introduction to the difficult job of a referee for John.


  1. James Angland
  2. Pa Sheahan
  3. Ian O Gorman
  4. Dave Roche
  5. Padraig Cronin
  6. Pa Angland
  7. Brian Cotter (0-02)
  8. Paul O Sullivan
  9. Liam Cronin (0-02)
  10. Eddie Cotter
  11. Billy Norris (0-02)
  12. Mickey O Connor
  13. Jack O Connor (0-03)
  14. Michael O Rourke (2-00)
  15. Padraig Looney (1-02)


Substitutes

  1. Gary Lane for Mickey O Connor
  2. Tadgh Moakley for Dave Roche
  3. Sean Woulfe for Liam Cronin
  4. Cian O Connor (1-00) for  Michael O Rourke
  5. Patrick Cronin for Padraig Looney



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