Castlewellan suffer Junior Shield loss

Castlewellan suffer Junior Shield loss

24 April 2024

IT was heartbreak for Castlewellan Town as they lost out in the Junior Shield final to a very well-organised St Mary’s outfit at Blanchflower Stadium last Wednesday.

The Town trailed by a goal at half-time and their Newtownabbey-based opponents kicked on further after the interval to ensure it was their name which was added to this year’s honours.

Castlewellan were already facing an uphill battle before kick-off, as news spread that striker Rhys Clarke was ruled out with a hamstring issue and talisman Karol Jarosinski hadn’t recovered in time from an earlier injury which has kept him on the sidelines for over a month.

That forced Town boss John Young into a reshuffle and although some of his replacements were green to the occasion, they did give a good account of themselves throughout the 90 minutes.

However, St Mary’s were just simply too good on the night and never really looked as though they were susceptible to leaking a goal.

From the first whistle, the Saints enjoyed the lion’s share of possession but they struggled to make headway into Castlewellan’s defence in the early stages.

Instead, the game followed a pattern of the Town sitting back, soaking up attacks and clearing the danger before St Mary’s regrouped and tried again.

The eventual winners finally got off the mark in the 37th minute when a series of neat one-touch passing opened an avenue for midfielder Tomas McCaffrey to exploit.

His pass down the left wing was initially intervened with by the Castlewellan defence but McCaffrey continued his run and collected the ball before driving towards the box and dispatching his effort low into the net.

This served as a wake-up call for the Castlewellan team, which enjoyed arguably their most encouraging spell of football in the minutes that followed.

The Town looked for a quick response and they almost got it when the ball was lumped forward from their defence and into the path of Matthew Stratton, who delicately placed his pass into the path of onrushing Castlewellan team-mate Cormac Barr.

The number eight struck first time with his left boot but the ball crashed off the post and away to safety.

Not long after, the curtain came down on the first half and it was back to the drawing board.

During the second half, Castlewellan certainly had more of a presence with the ball at their feet but they were dealt a real blow when a failure to clear their defensive lines was capitalised on by St Mary’s substitute Saul Boyle.

His cross into the box was kicked by the Town defence to the edge of the area, where St Mary’s skipper Conor Kearney was waiting to guide the ball into the bottom corner, despite the diving efforts of goalkeeper Rory Burns.

The third and final goal of the match came in the 80th minute when St Mary’s midfielder Niall McDaid gave the dangerous and busy Boyle something to latch on to with an impressive forward pass.

Boyle showed an eye-catching burst of pace before squaring his pass across the Castlewellan box for an unmissable tap in by team-mate Martin Murphy.

To their credit, Castlewellan continued to battle until the final whistle but it just wasn’t to be their night.

St Mary’s: B Arthurs, L McFadden, E O’Hare, H Griffin, M Deighan, N McDaid, C Kearney (capt), R Bannon, M Murphy, T McCaffrey.

Subs: M Henry, D Stanton, J Campbell, S Boyle.

Castlewellan: R Burns, B Travers, C Stratton, A Garland, R McArdle, C Corrigan (capt), D McKay, C Barr, M Stratton, R McCullagh, E Travers.

Subs: C Cope, J Croskery, M Watson, G Kidd, C Flanagan.