Swinford survive late Bonni' scare

JFC Group 1 - Round 1

Swinford 0-13

Bonniconlon 0-10

Despite a dominant performance for 50 minutes, Swinford were made to hang on for a thoroughly deserved victory at a windy Robert McCallion Park on Sunday afternoon.

The East Mayo men were full value for their three point win but will know they should have won by a much greater margin such was their dominance at times in this contest.

Five points in the last ten minutes for Bonniconlon, all coming off a systems failure in the Swinford kickout strategy, made things nervy and an injury-time save by Conor Campbell with four points between the teams secured the victory for Brian Gallagher’s men.

Bonniconlon won the toss and opted to play with the wind at their backs and many expected it would be a case of keeping the score down for the home side such was the strength of the wind. Instead the visitors only scored once, from Sean Neary, in 30 minutes and also had seven wides to their name.

Swinford’s running game was instead causing all sorts of problems in the Bonniconlon defence that they couldn’t answer and Mark Forkan, Thomas Tuffy, Barry Brennan, Darren Campbell and Liam Moran pushed the hosts into a five points to one lead with twenty minutes on the clock.

Moran would add another free on 27 minutes before Neary grabbed his and Bonniconlon’s second on the stroke of half-time.

The home side, with the strong gale at their back, started the second-half as they played much of the first. Liam Moran hit two frees and the excellent Dylan Toner scored from play to stretch their lead out to seven before Noel Judge added to Bonniconlon’s tally.

Swinford kept up their running game but added some long kick passes to their arsenal after the break and with Thomas Tuffy in fine ball winning form up front they were making great success but it was their ability to turn their opponents over in the middle of the pitch that was the most impressive.

Mark Forkan, Toner, Sean Brady and David Taylor were putting in some big hits and stealing the ball time after time and Bonniconlon had no answer for it.

Two Ciaran Gaughan points sandwiched an effort from Tuffy but Jack Ferguson and Taylor added to Swinford’s tally to leave them eight ahead with ten minutes to go.

Ferguson’s 49th minute effort would be Swinford’s last, however, as the home side appeared to think the job was done and let Bonniconlon back into the game.

The visitors scored through Ronan Neary and from there they pushed up on the Swinford kickout and picked off Conor Campbell time after time.

Two Neary frees and a point from Niall Greavy closed the gap to four as the clocked ticked into the red. Dara Fox had a great chance to bring it down to one on 61 minutes when he was played straight through on goal but his shot was brilliantly saved by Campbell.

Gaughan pointed the resultant ’45 for the last score of the game as his side ran out of time.

Swinford: Conor Campbell, Alan McLoughlin, Paul McNicholas, Martin Murphy, Mark Forkan (0-2), Sean Brady, Jack Ferguson (0-1), Barry Brennan (0-1), Dylan Toner (0-1), David Taylor (0-1), Liam Moran (0-4,3f), Danny Molloy, Josh Smith, Darren Campbell (0-1), Thomas Tuffy (0-2) Subs: Mark McNicholas, Raef Donnelly, Jason McLoughlin

Bonniconlon: Aidan Doherty, Eoin Fox, Eoghan Greavy, Martin Boyd, Dara Fox, Conor Redmond, Thomas Walsh, Richard McKenzie, Jonathan Lavelle, Noel Judge (0-1), Niall Greavy (0-1), Ronan Conlon, James Harrington, Brian O’Malley, Sean Neary (0-4,2f) Subs: Ronan Neary (0-1), Conor Igoe, Rory Upton, David Walsh, Ciaran Gaughan (0-3, 1 ’45)

Ref: Eamonn McAndrew