The senior footballers came from 5 points down well into the second half to dig out a draw against a good Naomh Uile team and if truth be told we had the opportunity to secure the points but a final effort saw the ball drop short into the keepers hands.
Connall Lemon opened the scoring for the visitors with a well taken point but CJ Sullivan soon had us level after 5 minutes with his first point of the day. We had plenty of possession but were struggling to break through a packed Naomh Uile defence and they tagged on points from Peter McReynolds, Conor Stewart and Kavan Keenan to open up a three point advantage. Aaron Slane pointed a free from 45 yards following a foul on Padraig Mc Parland but on 30 minutes a James Mc Donnell point restored the Naomh Uile 3 point lead. A Gerard Slane pointed free in injury time saw us trail at the break 0-3 to 0-5.
Kavan Keenan extended the lead with the first point of the second half but we responded with three unanswered points from CJ Sullivan and Aaron Slane 0-2 (1f, 45) to level and we were well back in the game. We started to dominate possession but were unable to add to our tally and were rocked when a long ball ball into the square was fisted to the net by Kavan Keenan to stop us in our tracks. Sean McVeigh and Benny McDonnell points pushed the Naomh Uile lead to five but we refused to lie down. Points from CJ Sullivan and Gerard Slane left us a goal in arrears but a black card reduced us to 14 men and again we were on the back foot. However, Naomh Uile did not make use of their numerical advantage and we saw out the 10 minute sin bin period without conceding any further scores. Back to 15 we finished the game the stronger and with points from Gerard Slane (0-2) and Padraig McParland levelled the game deep into injury time and it was the Ballymena men who were hanging on. One final push for the win saw the ball drop into the Naomh Uile keepers hands and the referee called time with the score level 0-11 to 1-8.
Scorers: CJ Sullivan 0-3, Aaron Slane 0-3, Gerard Slane 0-4, Padraig McParland 0-1
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