Roche and Blake net as Murphy's men see off the Saffrons
Niall Roche scored a goal today for Carlow during the National League Division 4 win over Antrim Photo: Pat Ahern
Carlow made the long journey to Roger Casements GFC in Portglenone a winning one when they came away with an excellent National Football League Division 4 first round win on Sunday.
It looked ominous for the visitors in the opening jousts as the Saffrons eased ahead with points from Eoghan McCabe, Niall Burns and Conor Small. In a two-minute spell that lead was wiped out as the visitors struck for two goals. Niall Roche scored the first when he took a forward pass from his Old Leighlin captain, Mikey Bambrick, to find the top right hand corner.
Joe Murphy's team attacked again and when Conor Doyle was tripped inside the big parallelogram, Chris Blake converted the resultant penalty. Niall Burns kept the Antrim challenge on track when he landed a two-pointer from play. Despite playing against the wind, Carlow led 2-4 to 0-9 at the interval.
The eventual winners made full use of the elements in the third quarter with two-pointers from Doyle and Blake. Carlow enjoyed the edge but couldn’t pull away from Antrim who fought hard.
Colm Hulton landed a two-pointer as Carlow pushed themselves into a six point lead. Life is never simple for the Barrowsiders and some chances were not taken. When Paddy McAleer punched an Antrim goal, the game was on a knife-edge.
The Carlow defence were solid in the final ten minutes with keeper, Ben McCarron, also making a point-blank save. The six-minutes of stoppage time gave Antrim time to rescue the situation but Carlow were in no mood to lose this one and ran out deserving in a tense finale.
C Blake 1-4 (1-0 pen 1-2p), C Doyle 0-3 (1-2p), N Roche 1-0, C Hulton (1-2p), R Dunphy, C Crowley, 0-2 each, P Bolger, P McDonnell, M Bambrick 0-1 each.
N Burns 0-4 (f 1-2p), P McAleer 1-1 (1f), P Shivers (1f), E McCabe, O Doherty 0-2 each, E Walsh, C Small, T McCann (f), M Jordan 0-1 each.
Ben McCarron; Colin Byrne, Niall Roche, Lee Moore; Dara Curran, Mark Furey, Padhraig Bolger; Eoghan Ruth, Conor Doyle; Paddy McDonnell, Colm Hulton, Mikey Bambrick; Conor Crowley, Chris Blake, Ross Dunphy. Subs: Shane Clarke for Bolger (46), Tadgh Roche for Bambrick (46), Adam Burgess for Ruth (51), Aaron Amond for Dunphy (51), Liam Gavin for Amond (Blood 60), Amond for Gavin (65).
John McNabb; Eunan Walsh, Kevin McCann, Kavan Keenan; Eoghan McCabe, Joseph Finnegan, Marc Jordan; Paddy McAleer, John Carron; Patrick McBride, Conor Small, Sean O’Neill; Pat Shivers, Niall Burns, Oisin Doherty. Subs: Kevin Small for Carron (46), Dominic McEnhill for C Small (46), Ronan Quinn for O’Neill (54), Ryan McQuillan for McBride (60), Tomas McCann for McCann (61).
Andrew Smyth (Meath).
