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Roe Valley 1-2 Draperstown Celtic

January 29, 2007

Draperstown emerged with all three points from their trip to Limavady, their first league win, in what has been a very restricted season and their overall play just about deserved the victory. They created the majority of the chances but a failure to turn these into goals could have seen the home side gain an unexpected point.

Played on a very heavy pitch Celtic appeared to adapt to the conditions much more quickly than their hosts and were a goal to the good after 12 minutes when a Bradley corner was cleared only to Chris McGarrigle who hammered the ball home from 20 yards past the flailing arms of Davies in the home goal.

Roe Valley caused a bit of panic among Celtic’s defence when Lee Ferris’ free kick was eventually scrambled away by Brown with Mullan ready to pounce. Ryan Bradley could have doubled Celtic’s lead when after a good break from midfield he fired over the bar from 18 yards under pressure from McPeake.
Roe Valley were having to defend in depth at this stage and Davies’ fumble from Caulfield’s free should have been capitalised by Celtic before the ball was cleared.

However the second goal came on 26 minutes when after a quickly taken free kick, Cathal Donnelly’s low cross eluded 3 Celtic forwards only for Roe Valley veteran Mickey Guy to turn the ball past Davies to put Draperstown comfortably in the driving seat.

They had chances to put the game firmly beyond Roe Valley’s grasp even at this early stage with two good chances in quick succession. Firstly on 39 minutes, Sean McBride who put in a very good performance, was unlucky to see his shot parried by Davies only for the ball to stick in the mud on the goal line allowing the keeper to recover. Two minutes later McBride crossed for Eamon Murray to shoot straight at Davies who gathered at the second attempt.  Roe Valley pulled themselves back into the game almost on half time when a poorly defended right wing cross fell to Matt Ferris who poked the ball past Leonard to leave the half time score at 2-1.

Celtic opened the second half in determined fashion. Ryan Bradley fired wide on 47 minutes and two minutes later McBrides shot was blocked by Davies, the rebound again falling to Bradley whose shot was deflected away fro a corner. Having survived these scares, Valley upped the pressure on the Celtic defence and largely took control of the remainder of the game. Doran was unlucky when a good run forced his way past three Celtic defenders before he shot into the side netting and just after the hour mark, Kevin Leonard pulled off a fine diving save from Cooke’s free kick. Draperstown were relying playing on the break at this stage and Raymond Caulfiled who had an excellent game in central midfield certainly led the charge on more than one occasion in an effort to secure a vital third goal, being stopped by a last gasp tackle by Moore to prevent him from doing so on 70 minutes.

The home side will wonder how they didn’t equalise on 73 minutes when in an almighty scramble following a corner both Cooke and Mc Peake had shots cleared off the line the latter of which fell to Lee Ferris who from one yard crashed the ball onto the crossbar which Celtic eventually cleared. This appeared to knock the fight out of the home side and it was Draperstown who could have added to their tally with both Murray and Ryan Bradley missing goal scoring chances before the final whistle came leaving Celtic just about deserving winners, especially on chances created.

Team:

Kevin Leonard, Ryan Browne, John Higgins, Declan Graffan, Stephen McKee, Cathal Donnelly, Raymond Caulfield, Conor McDevitt, Sean McBride, Chris McGarrigle, Kevin Ward.

Subs: Seamus Bradley, Ryan Bradley

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Written by Paul Gormley · Filed Under First Team, News