Irvinestown Wanderers and Enniskillen Santos must play each other in a one off play-off match after their final league encounter ended a draw, leaving them locked together at the top of the table. Irvinestown took the lead in the second half through Gary Maguirebut were unable to hold on, and a Santos equaliser from Craig Johnston means the two will meet again next week at Ferney Park to decide the destination of the Division Two title.

Both sides had chances to win the game with Wanderers dominating for three quarters of the contest, before a strong Santos finish threatened to turn the game on its head.

“We bossed it for 65 or 70 minutes but we were lucky to hang on for the last 20,” said Irvinestown joint manager Dermott McCann. “Their equaliser was a great goal and it was nothing more than what they deserved for their performance in the last 20 minutes. We did all we could but we ran out of legs and just couldn’t get the second goal to kill it and we hung on at the finish. If we had taken our chances we would have been out of sight, but we just couldn’t do it. When you are home you should kill games off and we didn’t do that and we paid the price. If any team looked like winning it at the end it was Santos but I don’t think either team deserved to lose it. A draw was a fair result and we go again now. We are still in there fighting.” Santos boss Joe Keenan acknowledges his side rode their luck for much of the match. “We got off the hook,” he admitted. “It was a bad game and a bad team performance from us, but a good result. We didn’t play well at all. My big players didn’t play well and we didn’t start the first half. We froze on the day for some reason. After we scored we could have gone on and won it but it would have been stealing the game to be honest. I was happy to get a play off because when we were one down I couldn’t see it coming.” Wanderers had the better of the first half without creating many clear cut goal scoring opportunities.

A Gary Maguire free kick was the nearest they came to opening the scoring, but Ramsey in the Santos goal kept the ball out.

The deserved breakthrough finally arrived ten minutes into the second half when a long ball out of defence was not dealt with by the Santos defence and Gary Maguire ran onto it and fired past the advancing keeper from 30 yards. Wanderers continued to threaten with Lyndon Johnston denied a goal scoring opportunity by a well-timed tackle, and twice Ramsey came quickly off his goal line to smother the ball when it looked as though the home side might break through.

As the game wore on Santos started to pose more of an attacking threat and with 15 minutes remaining substitute Sean Corrigan delivered a cross for Craig Johnston, who controlled the ball before firing into the net to level the scores and set up another league decider.