Posted online: Jul 7th, 2010

By Frank Craig
sports editor

Ardara 1-07
Killybegs 1-08

Killybegs are through to the quarter finals of the senior championship after they just about edged out Ardara is a fiercely contested encounter at a wind swept Pairc na nGael in Glencolmcille on Sunday.
Ardara, electing to play with the aid of the elements for the opening period, could only muster up five white flags – and that statistic went a long way to deciding this one.
Killybegs hustled and harried their opponents and took shrewd advantage of a number of stoppages to reach the half time marker only three points off the pace.
It was Killybegs that actually opened the scoring after a tentative and scrappy twelve minutes of action. Kevin Martin chipped over a twenty-five metre free after Conal Molloy had been upended on the move.
Ardara finally got off the mark through Peter McNelis after Francis Diver had jinked through the middle. Diver then got in on the act himself, finishing off a fine passage of play that also involved McNelis and Gallagher to lead 0-2 to 0-1 twelve minutes from the break.
Ardara then doubled their tally as Stephen McHugh and Stephen Gildea split the posts. Conscious that his side needed to find more scores fast, Ardara boss Patrick Gallagher introduced the lively Marty Shovlin at the expense of Jimmy O’Connell up front.
While Shovlin didn’t get on the score sheet, he did ask immediate questions of the Killybegs rearguard. And it was his blocked shot that feel kindly to Diver to leave matters 0-5 to 0-2 in Ardara’s favour.
At this stage it looked ominous for the 2004 champions – but they deserve credit for their second half efforts. They exploded out of the blocks to bang in the contest’s opening goal just forty seconds after the restart. Kenneth Doherty drove at the heart of the Fishermen’s defence.
He then managed to off lead to Peter McNelis at just the right moment before the latter slipped the ball inside for Gildea to slot home from close range.
Seconds later Peter McNelis ghosted through once more but seemed to be dragged back. Referee Kieran McShea didn’t see it that way however, and Killybegs instantly turned defence into attack, as Paul McGinley got on the end of a field length break to blast his side back into contention.
With just three points the margin once again, Killybegs’ tails were well and truly up. Smelling blood, Conal Molloy reduced the difference to two with a huge effort from fifty plus metres. Despite the initial confusion as to whether the ball had actually reached its desired target – it was finally signalled over and Killybegs were back in the hunt.
Ardara then passed up another goal chance when Doherty again powered through to set up Noel Gallagher. Gallagher elected to take his point despite the pleas of Gildea inside and the opportunity was gone.
Gildea did manage to chip over from the free to push his side four points to the good after an earlier miss, but you sensed at this stage that Ardara needed to find the onion bag once more if they were to pull this one out of the fire.
The opportunity did present itself once more – and again it was Gildea sniffing about inside that nearly claimed the result for his side. Ardara broke through once more only for Peter McNelis’ attempted square to Gildea to be cut out by a desperate stray boot from Barry Cannon – the chance went begging and with that so did Ardara’s Dr Maguire aspirations for 2010.
Killybegs hit five scores uninterrupted before the end to squeeze home after a pulsating second half of entertainment. Kevin Martin (2), Conal Molloy and Paul McGinley tied matters up with ten minutes of play left on the watch. Two minutes later and Killybegs were in front as Shane ‘Baker’ Boyle raced clear to dissect the posts.
Even then, Ardara had chances to force the game to extra time but fell agonisingly short of the posts. Both McHugh (free) and Doherty found the distance but couldn’t beat the breeze as both efforts went the wrong side of the upright.
Killybegs’ effort really was a team one but the individual endeavours of Conal Molloy, Paul McGinley and Christopher Murrin were a huge contributory factor. For Ardara Kenneth Doherty, Paddy McGrath, Fran Diver and the busy Martin Shovlin tried hardest.