Ballinderry Shamrocks

Lotto

Lucky Letters for Monday 10th March were: Y, A, O, D £50 winners Andrew Kelly (Ballinderry) & Martin McKinless (Ballinderry). Next week’s jackpot £2400

Seniors

We beat Gortin by a point on Sunday to qualify for this year’s Ulster Senior League Final. The game played in Gortin on a heavy pitch was a tight battle throughout with Fortin controlling the game for long periods. We took the lead with an early James Bateson point, however we failed to build on this good start as Gortin began to dominate possession around the middle of the field and raced into a 1:03 to 0:01 lead. We then managed to get our second score of the game with about ten minutes of the first half remaining when Brendan Conway raced through to find the net after good work from Ronan Devlin and James Bateson, this left us trailing by two points and this is how it remained until half time.

Half Time: Ballinderry 1:01 Gortin 1:03

The second half got of to a robust start with very little football being played for the first five minutes, the referee’s tendency to keep wanting to throw the ball up instead of giving a foul either way didn’t help in the early stages of the half. However when the game settled down we began to take control for the next 10-15 minutes and hit four unanswered points to race into a three point lead, the scores coming from Brendan Conway, James Conway and two from Brian McGuckin, one from play and the other a brilliant point from near the sideline. It now looked as though we had ridden the storm and that we had done enough to end the Gortin challenge but to their credit they battle back and narrowed the gap to two points before they broke out of defence to score a excellent goal to regain the lead with less than five minutes to go. With the game now in the balance we grabbed an equaliser through James Bateson, and with extra time now looking a distinct possibility both teams went in search of a winner. Gortin had a great chance to retake the lead but wided, we then broke up te field and from a quick free kick Enda Muldoon raced through to score the winning point.

Full Time: Ballinderry 1:08 Gortin 2:04

In the final we will play fellow Derry side Glenullin, the game will be plated on Easter Monday with time and venue to be confirmed

Team and Scorers: M. Conlan, K. Hagan, N.McCusker, K. McGuckin, B. Conway (1:01), R. McGuckin, C. Nevin, Kevin Moss McGuckin, J. Conway (0:01), A. Heron, D. Conway, R. Devlin, J. Bateson (0:02), B. McGuckin (0:02, 1f), F. Muldoon. Subs Used: C. Gilligan, D. McGeegan, E. Muldoon (0:01)

Under 14’s

Our under 14’s had a good win on Sunday when we beat Ballinascreen by ten points this despite the fact we were trailing by a point at half time. A brilliant second half display in which we scored 1:12 secured our first win in this years competition. Our next game is this Saturday when we play Kilrea at Shamrock Park, throw in at 11am.

Congratulations

The club would like to extend its congratulations to senior player Jarlath Bell who got married last Friday to Magherafelt woman Grace Campbell. Best wishes to Jarlath and Grace from everyone at the club.