NFC Kesh 2 Orchard Farm 0 Kesh put together back to back wins for the first time this season as they set up a second round tie against Enniskillen Town in the Mulhern Cup. After an uneventful first half goals from Niall McMenamin and Craig Morton secured the victory, but it was a penalty claim that Orchard Farm manager Stuart Armstrong felt cost his side a chance of causing an upset.

Trailing 1-0, Orchard Farm’s Jamie Wilson capitalised on a poor touch by the keeper and seemed to have robbed him of possession to set up a simple finish. Wilson failed to get his shot away however, and Armstrong was convinced he was fouled and his side should have had a penalty as Wilson was dragged back.

“The referee is normally a very good referee but he absolutely bottled it in my opinion,” said the manager. “In the first half we tried to get ten men behind the ball with a pacey guy up front, frustrate them and take it ten minutes at a time. That is more or less the way the game panned out. For all their possession they didn’t carve us open.The guys stuck to the game plan really well and we frustrated Kesh a lot, but they kept knocking at the door and we can have no real complaints about the outcome.”

Kesh manager Niall Amos was happy to earn a win, despite acknowledging that it was far from their best performance of the season.

“We made hard enough work of it,” he admitted. “They came with a game plan and really frustrated the life out of us in the first half. We got sucked into a bad game of football, but we showed a bit of character and dug it out because we could have easily have suffered a first round cup shock.”

The first half of the match was a non-event with no significant goal mouth action in a dour opening forty five minutes.

Kesh started to gain the upper hand in the second half and had their first attempt on goal after 55 minutes when Mark Jones headed straight at the keeper from close range.

Kesh finally broke the deadlock on 65 minutes. A quickly taken free kick from Jordan Fleck released Nigel Beacom down the wing, and his cross was headed in at the far post by Niall McMenamin.

Jones, McMenamin and Beacom all had chances to add to the opener for the home team, while at the other end occasional attacks for Orchard Farm saw Scott Armstrong hit the bar and Tony Glenn with an effort cleared off the line.

With three minutes remaining the result was put beyond doubt. Left winger Craig Morton’s shot was deflected into the air by the retreating Aaron Somerville. The ball bounced up into the air and Morton won the challenge for the loose ball to head into the net.

Orchard Farm appealed for a free kick for the goal line challenge, but the referee waved their protests away with Kesh progressing to the next round.