Lisbellaw United 1 Irvinestown Wanderers 0

 

A goal seven minutes from time from central defender Stuart Cochrane secured all three points for Lisbellaw and kept the pressure on Tummery at the top of Division One.
And it sets up a crunch clash this Saturday as Lisbellaw travel to Dromore to take on Tummery in a top of the table clash as the duo, along with Strathroy, look to battle it out for the title.
"It's a real big game and it's one that we can't afford to lose although we are going to have to play better than we did on Saturday," said manager Andy Reilly.
On last week's slender win, Reilly added: "It was a battle and one goal was always going to win it. Thankfully we got the goal although Irvinestown will feel that they deserved something out of the game."
It looked as though a stubborn Irvinestown Wanderers would hold out for a draw against the title challengers, but the late strike denied the visitors any points in their first game since mid-November.
Despite the frustrating manner of the defeat Wanderers manager Dermott McCann was happy with his team’s performance. “I think a draw would have been a fair result, but we can still take plenty of positives from it,” he said. “We had a few boys back who were playing our first competitive games for us this season and you would have known we hadn’t played together and hadn’t played at all in a while, but we came out in the second half and created a lot of chances. If Lisbellaw owned the first half, we would have owned the second half. We were happy with the performance. We were rusty but Lisbellaw will be there or there about at the end of the season, and we gave a good account of ourselves, even if we were a bit ring rusty. We would have liked an easier game for our first game back but there is no such thing as an easy game in that first division. 
"We put out the strongest team we have all season and that was shown in the result. To lose only 1-0 at Lisbellaw you have to play well. Hopefully we can keep this side together for the last nine games and push on into mid table and make sure we can stay up.”
Kick off was delayed by 45 minutes in the game as the referee had travelled to the wrong venue, and the game kicked off under the control of Wanderers manager Paul Cassidy before the referee arrived to take the whistle with the match almost at the ten minute mark.
Lisbellaw looked the more threatening team in the first forty five minutes, with Irvinestown struggling to create any goal scoring chances. A Davy Little free was headed goal wards by Tiernan Magee but Wanderers goalkeeper Fergal Murphy made a close range block to deny Lisbellaw a goal before the interval.
After a slow start Wanderers upped their game in the second period. Chris O’Brien was upended just outside the Lisbellaw penalty area and Gary Maguire stepped up to fire a goal bound free kick over the wall, but Matty Quinn got his fingertips to it to divert the ball over the crossbar. 
Moments later Quinn was again called into action from a free kick after Joey Millar was fouled, and again he up to the task, diverting the ball behind. From the resultant corner from Maguire the ball almost sneaked in at the near post, with Quinn again needed to preserve their clean sheet
Lisbellaw responded well and began to create openings, with Paul McGrath and Lee Glass combining to put Tiernan Magee through, but his effort flew high over the bar. Murphy was then called upon to keep out a Magee shot, before the game’s pivotal moment in the 83rd minute. Davy Little’s corner was met by a towering header from Stuart Cochrane which flew beyond Murphy to score the game’s only goal.
The win for Lisbellaw sets up a crucial top of the table clash this coming weekend, as they take on Tummery in Dromore.
The Dromore outfit currently hold a five point advantage over Lisbellaw but the Drumad side have three games in hand and it makes Saturday's encounter an intriguing showdown.