The senior footballers put in a much better performance at home to Naomh Seosamh than their previous championship outing against Pádraig Sairseil and will definitely be kicking themselves as they went down by the minimum. Failure to convert chances in the second half proved to be our downfall and when we finally registered in the 55th minute, despite finishing strong we just came up short.
Naomh Seosamh started the better and raced into a four point lead with their first two points culminating from quick breaks from defense into attack with Patrick Gallagher and Fergal Henry on target. The third was a nice finish by James Gallagher as he swung his shot over his shoulder as he was under pressure with the fourth coming from Liam Henry. We got off the mark in the14th minute when the ball was played into Anthony Rowntree, who took possession, swivelled and kicked over the bar. Fergal Henry replied for the visitors, but a curling free from Gerard Slane split the posts, before Nathan Maginn kicked a fine point of his right out near the left touchline to leave two between the sides. Another Finn Shannon point restored the Naomh Seosamh goal advantage but in the 28th minute a quick free found Gerard Slane and he calmly finished to the net to level the game. The final score came in injury time from Patrick Gallagher and we trailed by one at the break 1-3 to 0-7.
Naomh Seosamh opened the second half scoring with a Fergal Henry point, from a free in the 37th minute. They kept the score board ticking with further points from Henry (0-3) and by Dominic Gallagher and by the 53rd minute held a a six point advantage. It wasn’t that we failed to create scoring opportunities, we just seemed to lack a bit of composure in the final third and and convert the opportunities when they arose. A black card reduced us to fourteen men but this seemed to galvanise us, Paul McLaughlin converted a 45, which we quickly followed up with a goal from Anthony Rowntree and with two minutes of normal time remaining Gerard Slane pointed a free to leave one between the sides. It was a grandstand finish with Naomh Seosamh running the clock down with a spell of possession but despite our best efforts we could not muster that last opportunity to level or win the game and Naomh Seosamh hung on for the win 2-5 to 0-12.
Scorers: G Slane 1-2, A Rowntree 1-1, N Maginn 0-1 and P McLaughlin 0-1
Click here for photos of the game.
