JAFC Group C - Round 3. Skryne 2-18 Navan O'Mahonys 3-09

Skryne 2-18 Navan O’Mahonys 3-09

JAFC Group C – Round 3

Skryne and Navan O’Mahonys played out an exciting Junior Football Championship 3rd round match in Bective this evening. (Saturday). On an ideal evening for good football, with little or no breeze to contend with, both teams served up some excellent passages of play.

Even though Skryne started the game very well and had three points on the board before O’Mahonys opened their account with a well taken goal, the rest of the half belonged to the Navan men. They ran at the Skryne defence in waves and their centre back James Reilly caused havoc with his raids upfield. It seemed as if O’Mahonys would score a goal every time they crossed the Skryne 45 metre line. Darragh Smyth and Jake Regan also almost proved to be unstoppable at this point in the game. Skryne tried their best to keep in touch with 3 points from Jason Fox and 2 each from Neil Burke and Allan Carty, they still found themselves behind by 9 points at half time. At that stage it looked like a lost cause for the Blues as O’Mahonys led 3-7 to 0-7 at the break.

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Whatever was said or done during that halftime break it seemed to work wonders for the Tara men as they set about the task of reducing the big lead held by the Brews Hill team. They began exactly as they did in the first half and quickly had the first three points on the board before O’Mahonys got one back. But this time it was Skryne who scored the all important goal of the half. And what a goal it was – as Frank Carty raided up from his half back position to get on the end of a superb Skryne move and shoot low and hard to the O’Mahonys net. Skryne scored the next four points to one for the Town side. Then the second goal arrived – another brilliant effort finished by the other raiding half back Darren Fox after he was put through by top scoring veteran Allan Carty.

The saying goes that ‘goals win games’ and its a game of ‘two halves’ – well both were proved right in this match as O’Mahonys goals won the first half and Skryne’s goals the second. But the Skryne forwards had the better of the point scoring argument.

In what turned out to be an excellent team performance overall, after a difficult first half for the Blues, they were well served all over the field. Apart from the aforementioned scorers, the rest of the forwards played their part and all six defenders stepped up to the mark after the stern team talk at half time. At midfield Tommy Carpenter and Aidan Tuite won enough ball for their team to win the second half by 2-11 to 0-2. An amazing turnaround that could not have been predicted at the break. Remarkably all Skryne’s scores in the second half came from play while overall they scored just 3 points from frees while O’Mahonys also had just 3 points from frees. This suggests it was a free flowing game, easy for Referee Jack Gordon to officiate, and good value for the very small attendance as a result of so many alternatives and distractions on television.

Skryne – Des McAvinney. Jack Dardis, Dermot Brennan, Keith Donoghue. Frank Carty (1-0), David McGoldrick, Darren Fox (1-0). Aidan Tuite, Tommy Carpenter (0-1). Craig Nolan (0-2), Neil Burke (0-4), Ciaran Finnerty. Allan Carty (0-7), Paddy Carpenter, Jason Fox (0-4).

Sub used – Mark Jordan.