Club News09/05/03 Johnnies send 'Toome Raiders' back without any spoils

Missing a number of regulars St. John's produced a good win against tough opponents Cargin on Friday night, in the curtain raiser to the Senior Footballers match against Portglenone.

Captain Liam Donnelly (currently no.2 in the Top 10 club hairdos section) was missing due to injury, as was Donal Kennedy and Stephen Thompson, whilst midfielder Gareth Clarke and goalkeeper Barry Mulgrew were both called up to the Senior panel, so the task of netminder fell to Declan Crummey - who performed well enough, his kickouts were good and Cargin's only goal came from a penalty kick which he couldn't have stopped.

Despite those missing St. John's took the upper hand, against a team who were able to field a few regulars from their senior team as their senior match had been called off. David Reynolds produced the majority of points for St. John's from frees with Niall McCallin also scoring a superb point from centre-half back, whilst Gerard McFall knocked in a goal from the penalty spot in the second half.

Manager Gerry McCann drafted subs John McCallin and Conor Gannon into the corner forward positions at the start of the second half, John producing a fine individual point and Conor, unfamiliar to the forward line in his 24 years with the club, causing plenty of confusion amongst the Cargin defence (and possibly the St. John's forwards as well).

St. John's had plenty of chances to kill the match off in the second half however, after a tackle from full-back Aidan Kelly, which left the Cargin forward in some distress, it was Cargin who scored the goal to bring the teams close with 5 minutes of play remaining.

The defence however managed to keep Cargin out for the remaining 5 minutes, thanks to great work from Hugh Kennedy, Kevin Rafferty, Niall McCallin, Chris Clarke and Conor Gannon (now moved into defence to plug the gap which had emerged).

Without a doubt the Man of the Match was Niall McCallin, who dominated the centre-half back position and still found time to go up the field and score a superb long range point.

The match finished up 1-6 to 1-4.

 

		St. John's
		D. Crummey
H. Kennedy		A. Kelly	D. McAllister
K. Rafferty		N. McCallin	C. Clarke
		J. Connolly J. Hand
G. McFall		F. Collins	D. Reynolds
L. Boyle		C. McKnight	G. Rafferty
(Subs: C. Gannon for L. Boyle, J. McCallin for G. Rafferty)