ACL Div.2 Caulry 4-6 Mullingar Shamrocks 2-5.

We can’t avoid the cliché this time: goals win matches and conceding sloppy goals lose matches. Caulry scored their first after 3 minutes when Alan Malynn netted. Jack Connaughton stepped from his goal to point a 45 to send Caulry into an 0-4 lead.

Trevor Keena won a penalty midway through the first half after a strong run through the Caulry defence. Trevor himself stepped up and calmly scored. Shamrocks ended the half strong when an effort by Luke McCabe dropped short and Nathan Smith was alert to punch the ball to the net.

A pointed Ross Corroon free moments later had the sides all square. Caulry retaliated with a goal from Emmet Nally after a catch at midfield from Colin Murphy. Alan Malynn fired over a point and then added a third Caulry goal. Points were exchanged before Nathan Smith got a hand to a Luke McCabe free that dropped short to bring the interval score to 3-4 to 2-2 in Caulry’s favour.

Caulry extended their lead early in the second half when Thomas Dunning’s free-kick ended up in the back of the Shamrocks net. A couple of Shamrocks points including a beautiful outside of the boot effort from Niall Hannigan narrowed the gap in what was a low scoring second half.

Overall, a much improved performance from round 1 against what is Caulry’s first team with loads of positives for the team to build on.

Mullingar Shamrocks: Sean Hynes, Eamon Breslin, Emmet Walsh, Ryan Blundell, Donal Lane, David Coyne, Dylan Carey, Ciaran Kiernan (Matthew Ryan), Brendan O'Reilly, Niall Hannigan (0-1), Trevor Keena (1-1), Eddie Moore (Gary Corroon), Ross Corroon (0-2), Nathan Smith (1-0), Luke McCabe.