UHL Div 5A – Woodford Gaels v Davitts

Woodford Gaels 1-4 Davitts 1-9Saturday night saw us make the long trip to Ballyconnell in County Cavan to play Woodford Gaels in our first ever venture in the Ulster Hurling League. The weather was not ideal with a strong breeze blowing and heavy underfoot pitch conditions.Despite this an entertaining game was to follow and provided us with a much needed workout for our first match of the competitive season. We played into the breeze in the first half and started brightly when Ciaran Wright picked off an excellent point within the first minute to give us the lead. However, Woodford Gaels then made use of the breeze to open their account with a long range point before a long high ball into the box caused confusion in our defence and somehow the ball ended up in the net. This spurred the Gaels on and they added another point to lead 1-2 to 0-1. At this stage we started to settle down. Defensively we started to get on top and close down the space, the midfield began to get motoring and the forwards movement improved giving us more opportunities. We hit back with a Sean Smith point before we were awarded a 45 metre free. Paul Morgan stepped up to take the free and what everyone thought would be a simple point, but with the Woodford Gaels defense slow to get organised he fired a shot to the back of the net to level the scores at 1-2 to 1-2.We quickly took command in the second half and with points from Ciaran Wright, Gary Dunlop, Martin Mooney and Sean Smith 0-2 pushed us into a 1-7 to 1-2 lead and after this the result was never in doubt. Although Woodford Gaels valiantly hung in with two further point two long range frees from Ciaran Wright killed of their challenge to give a final scoreline of 1-9 to 1-4 and give us a winning start to our campaign.This was a good all round team effort with the backline working very hard to restrict Woodford Gaels particulary when they had the advantage of the strong breeze. The midfield provided good backup and linked well with the forward line and once the forwards started to make space we created many scoring chances. Although we shot numerous wides at least this gives us something to work on for our next outing on Saturday week against Clonduff. Let’s hope everyone gets along to give the team support.Team: T Toland, P Carleton (Sen), J Davis, E Gallagher, M Rowntree, M O’Brien, D O’Neill, M Mooney (0-1), G Dunlop (0-1), S Smith (0-3), S McGivern, P Morgan (1-0), P Carleton (Og), C Wright (0-4), C Mooney.Woodford Gaels: M Curry, G Reilly, P Devine, K Fitzpatrick, J Curry, P Neary, C McManus, D Neary, S McKiernan, C O’Neill, J Cassidy, D Reilly, G Davis, M Power, P Geoghegan