Magheraveely 0 Tummery Athletic 2

A GOAL in both halves was enough for Tummery Athletic to take the win against Magheraveely at Clones on Saturday.

Ciaran Beacom’s first-half strike was followed by a Gary Lynch goal 15 minutes from time as the champions maintained their unbeaten start to the season.

Magheraveely made it difficult for the visitors, and Manager Eamon McGlone felt they deserved more from the game.

“I think we deserved a draw at least,” he said.

“They scored after 10 minutes from a corner, which was disappointing because we do a lot of work on corners, but for the rest of the first half we played really well.

“We changed a few things around at half time and I thought we dominated the second half.

“They struggled with our intensity and for the first 20 minutes of the second half they barely got out of their own half, but we couldn’t get a goal.

“Not being able to score was the big difference on the day but I was happy with the overall performance.

“The positives were the intensity in our game, and some of the football we played was excellent. They are champions, and we caused them a lot of problems. If we can keep that up we will win more games than we will lose this year.”

Tummery boss Ryan Hanna admitted his side were not at their best, but was pleased they were able to grind out a result.

“We knew what we were going to be facing because it is a tough place to go, so we were delighted with the three points and delighted with the clean sheet, although not so much with the performance,” he said.

“Sometimes you have to find a way to win and that is what we did on Saturday. It was a dogged performance, I would say. We didn’t play our best football, but it is a results-based game and the three points were all-important.

“That is three games and three clean sheets. I’m happy with things so far.”

Tummery took an early lead when Aidy McCaffrey flicked on a corner from Malachy McLaughlin and Beacom applied the finishing touch.

Beacom had another opportunity ten minutes later but fired wide of the post, while at the other end Ronan Stirrat blazed over the bar when presented with Magheraveely’s best opening of the first half.

At the start of the second half Beacom headed high over the bar, but the home team were looking dangerous and Andy Little spurned a great chance when his header failed to test Tummery goalkeeper Tim Harney.

Magheraveely continued to press forward but a succession of chances failed to find the net, and they were made to pay when an Aidy McCaffrey cross was headed down by Michael Logue and Gary Lynch netted the second.