Kelly stars in a comfortable group win over An Spidéal

MOUNTBELLEW-MOYLOUGH  1-16

AN SPIDÉAL 1-8

Gerard Mulreaney at Pearse Stadium

WHILE the final score might suggest otherwise, Mountbellew-Moylough were in cruise control throughout this game and could have won by a much bigger scoreline.

Having lost four of the last six county finals, Val Daly’s men are fully focused on changing that statistic this year and will look forward with anticipation to the quarter finals in a couple of weeks’ time.

Mountbellew-Moylough forwards Paul Donnellan, Patrick Kelly and Eoin Finnerty all combined to set up midfielder Matthew Barrett to open the scoring in the second minute.

Finnerty and Kelly, who were causing no end of difficulties for the An Spidéal defence early on, set up Barry McHugh to tap over his first point a couple of minutes later as Mountbellew-Moylough stretched their advantage.

On 12 minutes, Mountbellew-Moylough were awarded a penalty. John Daly, Patrick Kelly, Barry McHugh, and Paul Donnellan were all involved in an intricate move before Donnellan was fouled. Kelly hit the penalty left-footed, but saw his effort brilliantly saved down low to his left by An Spidéal goalkeeper Manus Breathnach, only for the ball to rebound to Kelly who duly stroked it into the opposite side of the net. He added another free shortly after.

Half-back Colin Ryan had an excellent chance of a goal on 16 minutes, after some excellent work by Finnerty and McHugh, but his shot was once again expertly saved by a combination of An Spidéal defenders and goalkeeper Breathnach.

Despite having a strong wind advantage in the first half, it was proving extremely difficult for An Spidéal to get any sort of foothold in attack. They were dropping very deep anytime Mountbellew-Moylough were in possession, and as a result had no shots of their own in the opening quarter of the game. For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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