Irish Cup, round one
Castlewellan Town 3 Tandragee Rovers 0
IT was a day of firsts at Corrigan Park on Saturday for Castlewellan Town as Glynn Robinson’s men played their first ever Irish Cup game, while also hosting their first intermediate game as they faced off against Mid-Ulster Intermediate A side Tandragee Rovers.
The Town men came into the game full of confidence, having won their opening two league games, although they will have likely started as underdogs against seasoned intermediate side Tandragee.
The hosts settled the better of the two sides and enjoyed good spells of early possession with Croskery and McCullagh both going close early on. Castlewellan were then dealt a huge blow when the impressive Ryan McCullagh suffered a nasty injury following an accidental clash in the Tandragee penalty box.
Following a bit of a delay, it took both sides a while to get back into their flow, with Tandragee starting to get into the game more.
Despite enjoying more possession, the visitors were limited to set piece efforts with Burns in the Town goal rarely troubled.
Indeed, the Castlewellan defence of Kearney, Garland, McArdle and Corrigan were proving to be more than comfortable with anything that came their way.
With five minutes remaining in the half, Castlewellan stepped up the pressure, going close first through Croskery and then through Marron who put the ball agonisingly over the bar following a good team move.
With the half looking like it was going to finish all square, a quick Castlewellan break saw Stratton put the ball into the box where Jarosinski nipped in before the keeper to make it 1-0.
Read the full report in the current issue of the Mourne Observer.
