Northern Switchgear Antrim Senior Football Championship Group Four
St Gall’s 0-8 Creggan 2-10
 
CREGGAN confirmed their place in the Antrim SHC quarter-finals as Group Four winners with a comfortable 2-10 to 0-8 win over St Gall’s at De La Salle Park on Wednesday night.

Fintan Burke calmed in a goal for the visitors midway through the first half after Chris Kerr had made a good save to deny Paddy Coey.

St Gall’s rallied well having been five behind at the break and reduced the gap to a single point early in the second half, but could never draw level with the Kickhams and a penalty from Ruairi McCann gave them breathing space once again and they saw the game out in impressive fashion.

Creggan will await the runner-up of Group One, likely to be either Rossa or St John’s, in the quarter-finals while St Gall’s now seem certain to face old rivals Cargin in the knock-out stages.

St Gall’s opened the scoring with a Barra McCaffrey free on five minutes, but they found scores hard to engineer against a dogged Creggan defence.

A cracking point from wing-back Jamie McCann got the Kickhams off the marks and they moved ahead on eight minutes when McCann converted a free.

The South West side missed a few chances to add to their tally before they struck for their first goal.

Tiarnan McAteer and Coey linked up well to set the latter through on goal, but Kerr was equal to the shot. However, Burke was on hand to pounce on the loose ball to palm it into the net on 13 minutes.

St Gall’s suffered another blow when Eoghan McCabe was forced off the pitch with a hamstring injury and a brace of marks from the boot of Ruairi McCann stretched his side’s lead to 1-4 to 0-1.

The hosts replied with two superb points from play via Aodhan Gallagher and McCaffrey, but it proved to be their final scores of the half as they kicked a handful of wides late in the half.

Creggan closed the half with an excellent point from midfielder Kevin Small as his side went into the half-time interval leading 1-5 to 0-3.

Paddy Murray’s half-time speech worked wonders for the home side as they rattled off four unanswered points to close the gap back to a single point after 38 minutes.

Caolan Chada landed a point on the restart before Gallagher fired over from a mark.
Gallagher and Chada then linked up as McCaffrey got in for a great score and Kevin Niblock finally freed himself from the attention of Ricky Johnston to land a mark.

By the time Niblock fired over, Creggan were also down a man following Marty Johnston’s black card for a third-man challenge.

However, by the time the former Antrim ace was back on the pitch, Creggan had restored their five-point advantage.

St Gall’s had a hat-trick of chances to draw level, but missed them all before Ruairi McCann converted a free to put two points in the game.

Prior to the second water break, Creggan were awarded a penalty by referee Brendan Toland after Conor McCann was fouled and McCann made no mistake from the penalty to put Creggan 2-6 to 0-7 ahead.

St Gall’s never really looked like mounting a comeback in the final quarter and McCann converted another free before substitute Sean Duffin landed a point from play for the Kickhams.

The hosts finished the game with 13 men as full-back John McCaffrey picked up a black card before follow defender Shane O’Hagan received a black card minutes later.

Duffin fired over another fine score for Creggan while Matthew Rodgers also got his name on the scoresheet in stoppage time.

In between the final two scores for Creggan, St Gall’s defender Sean Kelly had kicked a stunning point at the other end for his side who must try and reset for their final group game against Gort na Móna and, potentially, another tilt at county champions Cargin.
 
ST GALL’S: C Kerr; T Ó Ciarán, J McCaffrey, S O’Hagan; M Donnelly, S Kelly (0-1), C Stinton; T Bunting, A Gallagher (0-2, 0-1m); E McCabe, T O’Neill, N Burns; M Pollock, K Niblock (0-1, 0-1m), B McCaffrey (0-3, 0-1f).
Subs: C Chada (0-1) for McCabe (15), B Bradley for Pollock (45), C Brady for Ó Ciarán (58), C McGirr for Burns (58).
 
CREGGAN: O Kerr; E Carey Small, R Johnston, E McAteer; A Maguire, M Johnston, J McCann (0-2, 0-1f); K Small (0-1), A McKeown; T McAteer, P Coey, F Burke (1-0); M Rodgers (0-1), R McCann (1-4, 0-2m, 0-2fs, 1-0 pen), O McLarnon.
Subs: K Rice for McAteer (38), C McCann for A Maguire (38), S Duffin (0-2) for Coey (50), S Maguire for E McAteer (52), T McCann for McLarnon (55).
 
REFEREE: B Toland (Lámh Dhearg).