Teconnaught are indebted to Paddy for brilliant strike

19 August 2015

FORTUNE certainly favoured the brave at Ardtole on Friday night when Teconnaught’s Paddy Maguire came off the bench to secure victory for the visitors with a late goal.

Teconnaught’s quest for promotion looked in trouble with nine minutes remaining. The sides were locked at 0-8 apiece, but Ardglass were in the ascendancy and coming on strong,

Things looked bleak for Kyran Smyth’s side and it got even worse for him when he lost Rory McDonnell with a wrist injury and hurriedly sent on Maguire. The rangy forward was only on the field a matter of seconds when he ghosted in behind the highly impressive Caolin O’Shea to get on the end of a laser pass from Shane Brennan.

Maguire had the simple task of slotting the ball over the bar to edge his side back in front, but he only had the one thought on his mind the minute he received the ball. Without looking up he buried the ball in the back of the net leaving Benji Armstrong, who had looked unbeatable all night, rooted to the spot.

The sides exchanged a few scores of the closing stages, but in the final analysis it was Maguire’s goal that made the difference.

Ardglass, who were always going to make life difficult for Teconnaught, opened with a super score from Stephen Rooney in the third minute before three unanswered frees from David Kelly gave the visitors a 0-3 to 0-1 lead by the 10th minute.

Ardglass had to reorganise when they lost the services of Eoin Curran and replaced him with young Caolan Conlon. Teconnaught dominated for a while, but they were denied a certain goal by Armstrong before John Polley left a point in it with another great score for Ardglass.

Conan Russell and the combatitive Philip Curran swapped scores before the reliable Kelly nudged the visitors into a 0-5 to 0-3 lead. However, just before the break Daniel Fleming was on the end of a flowing move to leave a point in it at half-time, 0-5 to 0-4.

Christian O’Connor and McDonnell swapped points on the restart before a Polley free brought the sides level by the 35th minute. Armstrong then earned an extra helping of corn when he denied McDonnell with another superb save and Stephen Rooney went straight down the field and pointed Ardglass into a 0-7 to 0-6 lead.

Points from Russell and Kelly gave Teconnaught back the lead, but it was short-lived as Daniel Smyth made it 0-8 apiece with 15 minutes remaining.

Teconnaught lost McDonnell and brought on Maguire with 11 minutes left — and what an impact he made.

His first touch was to collect Brennan’s pass and his second was thumping the ball past a helpless Armstrong to put Teconnaught firmely in the driving seat.

Ardglass weren’t beaten just yet and points from O’Connor and Mark Cahir left a point between then again. Kelly and Shane Teggart exchanged points and with time almost up Ronan Sweeney killed Ardglass off with the final score of the game.

Ardglass: M Armstrong, M McGuinness, C O’Shea, P Curran (0-1), D Smyth (0-1), E McEvoy, S P Halpin, S Rooney (0-2), C Armstrong, C O’Connor (0-2), L Mullan, D Fleming (0-1), S Teggart (0-1), J Polley (0-2), E Curran. Subs: C Conlon for E Curran, M Cahir (0-1) for Smyth, D Armstrong for Fleming, C Flynn for McGuinness.

Teconnaught: J Kelly, J O’Hare, C Carville, J Larkin, A McCartan, D Kelly (0-6), N Sweeney, C Flanagan, M McMullan, J Johnstone, S Brennan, T Davis, C Russell (0-2), J Casement, R McDonnell (0-1). Subs: R Sweeney (0-1) for McMullan, P Maguire (1-0) for McDonnell.

Ardglass 0-11

Teconnaught 1-10

ACFL DIVISION 3

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