Irvinestown Wanderers 3 Lisnarick 1

Irvinestown Wanderers maintained their unbeaten start to their league season with a 3-1 victory over local rivals Lisnarick.

The visitors took the lead with a goal from Kevin McCauley, but Wanderers hit back with strikes from Sean Clear, Gary Maguire and Joey Millar to claim the points.

Irvinestown Manager Darren Higginbotham was delighted with the win, and feels his team are showing signs of progress every week.

“I felt we were the better team,” he said. “Lisnarick came out and made it difficult for us to play, and made the gaps between the lines very tight.

“It was important we kept the ball well and the lads, in fairness, have improved week on week and one of the things we have been improving has been our ball retention, and we are doing much better at that now.

“We conceded the first goal, so it was important to see a reaction from the lads, and we got that.

“Any win is a good win, and to score three goals is obviously a positive, but we are back to training this week with another tough game against Augher.”

Lisnarick are still searching for their first league points of the season, but Manager Niall Amos felt his team performed well against one of the favourites for promotion in Division Two.

“They are a very good team and very good on the ball,” he acknowledged.

“They are the best footballing team in our league, but we made life difficult for them and I thought we gave them a game.

“They controlled the game, but we took the lead and gave them a wee scare. We have a couple of massive games coming up now over the next couple of weeks against Galaxy and Fintona and that could set us up.”

Lisnarick set out to be solid in defence and catch Wanderers on the break, and they carved out a chance after ten minutes when Barry Goodwin forced a mistake in the Irvinestown defence, but his shot was saved by Jerome Carleton.

Midway through the half Lisnarick took an unexpected lead when they broke down the left wing through Andrew Brown. His cross was only partially cleared by Carleton, and McCauley was on hand to poke the ball into the net.

Wanderers did respond to the setback, and they were level within five minutes when winger Sean Clear cut in from the left and fired a shot past the keeper from 25 yards.

Ten minutes before half time Wanderers had turned the score around as they moved ahead from a Gary Maguire penalty, after Ronan Ormsby had been fouled inside the penalty area.

The victory was completed five minutes into the second period when Joey Millar volleyed in a Jordan Palmer cross at the back post.