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Senior footballers get their league campaign off to a winning start

AFL1 St Sylvester’s 0-9 Skerries Harps 0-6 Our senior football team opened their league campaign with a hard-fought win over newly promoted Skerries Harps, who brought a large crowd to Broomfield for the game (hopefully we can do the same for our away games!). The match was played in very difficult conditions with persistent rain and a strong wind blowing down from the car park end.

The conditions favoured the home side in the first half and we went into the break with a 6-2 lead, which included a couple of well-taken long-range points from Gary Sweeney and Brian Sexton. Unfortunately, Gary had to go off with an injury and a four point lead seemed a slender margin facing into the wind and rain in the second half.

Syls v Skerries. ALF 2017.19th March (6 of 42)

Pictures here from Peter Hickey

However, in a determined second half display, we held possession very well with good link play and support work while we also defended resolutely and pressed the opposition strongly when they had the ball. Gavin McArdle got the score of the match with a marvellous and much needed point into the teeth of the wind midway through the second half. That score seemed to settle any residual nerves and we got on more of the ball after that and finished the game strongly with a deserved win. This was a promising start to the league, with a lot of hard grafting from man of the match Ronan Palmer and from Ross Hazely in the middle of the park, while our full back and half back lines provided solid defensive cover with good displays all round and especially from Gavin, Beano and John Peacock. Our bench also made an impact with Jamie Kennedy and Conor Ryan, in particular, showing well when they came one.

Already looking forward to the next game!

John F