Omagh Hospitals 2 Irvinestown Wanderers 3

Irvinestown Wanderers secured promotion back to the Mercer League with a 3-2 win over Omagh Hospitals on Saturday – but the win was marred by a scuffle after the final whistle.

Danny Noble, Christopher Lyons and Ronan Ormsby scored the goals to send Wanderers straight back to the top flight, but tempers then flared after the game ended.

On his side’s promotion, Wanderers’ Manager Darren Higginbotham said he was delighted.

“When I took the job I felt Irvinestown were a cornerstone of the Fermanagh and Western, and teams like Irvinestown shouldn’t be outside of Division One, so to get us back at the first time of asking is something we are delighted about, and it’s obviously a great achievement.

“But, as we said to the lads, we want to finish off the season properly.

“There’s a lot of football to be played between the final league game of the season and the cup competitions as well, so we want to finish it properly as we have other targets we want to achieve this season, and we certainly won’t lose focus in trying to do that.

“As far as we are concerned it’s back to business now on Tuesday, and everything is focused on our cup game against Enniskillen Galaxy at the Bawnacre on Saturday.”

Of the incident at the end of the game at Omagh Leisure Centre, Higginbotham added: “It was disappointing on the day to see that, and those sort of things have no place in football.

“We’ll leave it to the league and referee’s association to deal with it.”

Wanderers took the lead through Danny Noble on 15 minutes as he headed home Gary Maguire’s out-swinging free-kick into the top right corner.

The away side doubled their lead then minutes later as another set piece was delivered into the box by Maguire from the right-hand side, and the ball broke kindly for Christopher Lyons, who smashed it into the roof of the net to give his side a two-goal advantage going into half time.

The start of the second half was a scrappy affair as the Omagh side pushed for a way back into the game and they found it with a strike from distance by midfielder Eoin Coyle that dipped into the Irvinestown goal.

Gary Maguire almost found an instant response, but his left-footed free kick came off the crossbar before the third goal did arrive through Ronan Ormsby.

After some good build-up play the ball was worked to Jordan Palmer, who drilled the ball into Ormsby and he weaved past two Hospital defenders before finding the top left corner with his right foot.

Caolan O’Donnell pulled back a second for the home side in added time, but Irvinestown held on to secure their return to Division One.

The league will take a back seat this weekend as focus turns to the Mulhern Cup, Irvinestown taking on Enniskillen Galaxy while Omagh Hospitals are away to St.Patrick’s.