Erne Gaels slumped to a shock 12 point home defeat on Sunday afternoon. Newtown, a team battling at the bottom of the table, just above Teemore, produced an impressive performance to beat fourth placed Erne Gaels and secure a much needed two points.

The games was an even contest for the first 15 minutes as the teams traded scores and were level at five points apiece. However, Newtown dominated the remainder of the first half and went in leading by double figures, on a score line of 0-05 to 0-10 at the break.

Seamus Ryder (2), Paul McCaffrey, Damien Lyons and Tommy McCaffrey all registered points in the first half for the home side. Newtown had points from Ryan Carson (2f), Brendan McBrien (2f, 1 play), Sean Mullally, Conor Beggan and Colum Monahan, as they cruised into a five point lead.

The visitors were picking up a lot more ball in around the middle with Niall Moane, Colum Monahan, Ryan Carson and James Conway all winning a wealth of possession for the First Fermanagh side.

In the second half, Newtown was awarded a penalty in the first ten minutes. After a turnover in the Belleek defence, James Connolly was fouled and Brendan McBrien expertly converted the resultant kick into the corner of the net.

With ten minutes to go, Newtown got their second goal. Ryan Carson sliced his side-line kick and despite three Erne Gaels defenders having ample opportunity to deal with the ball, they failed to do so and Frank Mulligan won possession and laid it off to McBrien, who grabbed a second goal.

The Belleek men only managed a solitary point from Martin Gilfedder in the second half whilst further points from Shane Leonard and Colum Monahan capped off a fine display from the Newtown men.

Newtown Manager, Darren Chapman was pleased with how his team performed.

“I’m happy with the progress we’re making. Every win is important. We’ve been focusing on getting ourselves organised and fit and concentrating on our performance and structure. We used 20 players and every player played their part. What we’ve been working on in training is starting to embed itself now,” claims Chapman.

Erne Gaels Manager, Eddie Reilly believes the weekend’s performance is somewhat of a leveller for his players.

“I think we went into the game thinking more about what we’ve achieved already rather than what we have to achieve. It was a very poor performance and we just weren’t in the right frame of mind at all.” When asked how they’ll address this, he says: “We’re training three times this week, so we’ll see how we get on.”