Strand Celtic 1 Aughanagh Celtic 1

On a beautiful crisp strandhill morning we drew one all with a resolute Aughanagh side. While we had plenty of possession our failure to create and convert chances cost us dearly.

Augahangh opened brightly with their midfield working hard to gain possession. Despite this they were restricted to a couple of long range efforts. We did get in behind the defence on two occasions with both Daniel Gray and Conor McKeon just not picking out the final pass that could have brought the opener.

Former Strand Celtic youth player Daniel Willis opened the scoring with a great header from a deep cross. Willis had only come on after an early injury for Aughanagh. The game was evenly balanced for the remainder of the half.

We had a lot of possession in the second half and equalised mid way through the half. A great through ball from Daniel Gray rleased Dylan Martin who rounded the keeper and fired home past two retreating defenders. Aughanagh remained threatening on the break and had two great chances which went narrowly wide. At the other the hoops were still dominating possession but struggling to break Aughanagh down. JJ was doing well on the left and went close while a shot from Conor McKeon was cleared off the line. Right at the death a Conor McNulty header from a corner went just narrowly over and the final whistle went with the spoils shared.

The game finished on a sour note with two red cards for Darragh Halstones and Cian Conway for second yellow cards. Both of these were unnecessary.

Our squad has been stretched in recent weeks with injury, holidays and a number of players still tied up with GAA commitments.

We move on with a great opportunity to recover next friday night against league champions Carbury in strandhill with an 8pm kick off.