Pennine League - Sunday April 5th 2009

Young Irelands 5-12 St Patrick's Chester 0-6

Young Irelands opened their Pennine League account at Scothall Road on Sunday afternoon, defeating St Patricks Chester by a scoreline of 5-12 to 0-6. Young Irelands welcomed back Connor McGirr after an enforced year long absence from football. The former Omagh man marshalled the defence well alongside the ageless Pat Fahey throughout the afternoon.

Young Irelands got off to the ideal start with points from Neil 'Frankie' Reynolds and Alan Friel in the first 5 minutes before Friel struck the bar with a rasping effort. Young Irelands then hit a purple patch with Ronan McHale, Reynolds and Friel hitting the net in quick succession. These scores were followed up by two fine efforts from Garry Kernan and Reynolds.

St Patricks Chester eventually got off the mark after 20 minutes through Mark Beattie slotting over a fine effort. The Lancashire outfit finished the half strongly with 2 frees from Wicklow man Stephen Halpin and another score from play for the impressive Beattie. Young Irelands lost the services of full forward Reynolds at half time, the big full forward suffering from exhaustion due to the intense pace of the game.

St Patricks once again started the second half strongly with Beattie finishing off a sweeping move that emanated from the throw-in. However, Young Irelands responded strongly with a fine score from play from John Reilly. Friel then struck another free after some unorthodox defensive work from Conor Neeson. Friel then tagged on another two scores before McHale hit the net again.

Halpin responded with another score for the Chester outfit before Neeson added a point for Young Irelands, drop kicking over the bar from point blank range. Young Irelands then closed out the game with 2 further points from Friel as well as the score of the game from John Hastings. Mannus McGowan got the final score of the game after a prolonged goal mouth scramble.

This was an extremely encouraging performance from Young Irelands with Friel (1-6) and Reynolds (1-2) leading the line well, ably supported by McHale (2-0) and Flanagan (0-0) at midfield. Mc Girr and Fahey proved resolute in defence with Beattie (0-3), Halpin (0-3) and Scotstown man Shane Caulfield performing well for St Patricks.