IFC - Group One
St Agnes' 1-14
St James' Aldergrove 2-18
At Woodlands
A LATE Ronan Hanna goal earned Aldergrove the spoils and ended the hopes of the home side despite a spirited comeback from St Agnes' in their first Intermediate bout on Saturday afternoon at Woodlands.
The hosts enjoyed an impressive second-half which saw them cut a five-point deficit to within two and with a bit more composure from their forward line, the game may well have turned out in a very different light.
But unfortunately for the Aggies, despite their strong second half performance, the result seemed inevitable with Aldergrove running away as comfortable victors by the time the final whistle was sounded.
St Agnes' battled hard but were unlucky and suffered a defeat
The game began with Ronan Hanna punching an effort off his right foot with the effort just too high to be deemed a goal threat, but landing perfectly over the black spot for the opening score of the tie.
Despite being heavy underdogs, the Aggies played some neat football and showed some great scoring ability with an instant reply from David McGaharan flashing a terrific levelling score on the fifth minute.
Cormac McGarry soon began to control proceedings in the scoring chart for the men from the grove and hit a quick-fire brace of scores to increase the lead for his side to two points.
In the opening ten minutes, the score-line was rarely busy during that opening spell but the game did eventually spring into life with Barry McCrea and Seamus McGarry both exchanging scores within seconds of each other.
Aldergrove surged into the ascendency when the McGarry brothers combined to find the first green flag of the contest.
A brilliantly worked turnover saw Eoin Gough retrieve the ball from a St Agnes' kick-out which went terribly wrong. Gough then laid a pass onto the path of Seamus McGarry who continued his surging run and as the Aggies defender drew close he lofted the ball to his brother Cormac, who composed himself and blasted the ball into the net.
St Agnes' did respond twice from Conall Turley and both scores came from set-pieces with the second seeing a tremendous score for two-points.
The half saw a few more scores from Cormac McGarry and a terrific two-pointer from Ronan Hanna earned his side a strong half-time lead as the small whistle was sounded with a seven-point margin splitting the sides.
When the second-half started the script looked destined to flip as despite a seven-point lead, Aldergrove kicked nine wides in the first half and would rue them for large parts of the second period.
The Aggies hit four points without a response as Conall Turley, and David McGaharan hit an early brace of frees before Turley was struck with an injury and caused him to have less impact on the remainder of the tie.
James Campbell then stepped up and blasted a ferocious effort between the posts and when the signal for two was given the St Agnes' bench roared with delight as they closed in on their opposition.
Aldergrove struggled to maintain the Aggies and then when they burst forward and worked a terrific move with Kevin Floyd clipping a terrific pass into the box where Peter Lavery then took and laid the pass into the path of Cormac McBride.
McBride then cut an effort across the left hand side of Shane O'Neill's net and his finger-tip save did just enough to deny the initial strike, before Colin Mallon slammed the rebound home.
Aldergrove did show some resilience despite the momentum clearly in favour of the hosts, finding scores from Hanna and Ferghal Burke as the pair temporarily stopped the bleeding.
A superb two-pointer from Conall Turley gave belief back to the home side and there lay just two-points between the sides as they headed for the closing stages.
St James' managed to then flip the momentum in their favour with a couple of scores from the McGarry brothers extending the lead to four with as many minutes left on the clock.
James Trowlen's late introduction saw them strike another score and the tie was eventually sealed when despite calls from the bench to launch an easy point Ronan Hanna continued his run and managed to find space before firing a bullet into the top-corner of the net.
Paudie Meehan's late free was too little too late, and the wasted chances from the hosts during their mini-surge of momentum proved it was a stretch too far to cause what would have been a monumental upset against one of the favourites in the championship.
Aldergrove captain Seamus McGarry spoke with the Andersonstown News at the full-time whistle and credited their opponents for making it a tough afternoon for the away side.
"They were a really good side today" said McGarry. "We faced them here a few months back and they made it a real tough ask of us that day and we knew they would be aiming to do the same and this was their first championship game at home, we knew they'd be up for it and raring to go.
"Overall, the performance needs improving from us if we want to win the competition. We missed a lot of chances and made it a really nervy second-half, but to get an away win in the championship is massive and we will take the positives from that."
The away side made it two wins from two, and will face Gort na Móna in their next game. Meanwhile the Aggies have a home tie with Davitt's in two weeks' time.
St Agnes' XV: C Carroll; M McKillop, B McLarnon, P Carroll; C Gregory, C Turley 0-6 (3F), K McCormack; D Quigley, B McCrea 0-1 (1F); K Floyd, J Campbell 0-3 (1xTP), D McGaharan 0-2 (1F); P Lavery, P Meehan 0-2 (1F), C McBride
Subs: C Mallon 1-0, K Grieve
St James' Aldergrove XV: S O'Neill; C Lagan, C Fogerty, L Fleming; C McVeigh, E Irvine, E Gough; R Owens, O Graham 0-1; C Hendron, S McGarry 0-6 (3F), G Malcon; R Hanna 1-5, F Burke 0-1, C McGarry 1-4
Subs: J Trowlen 0-1, S Fay, D Gough
