Kilbride see off Dunsany in IFC opener

Anthony Moyles' side had an impressive first-half display which catapulted them to victory in the IFC first round clash.

Kilbride 0-1-11

Dunsany 0-0-9

A strong first-half performance ensured that Kilbride got their IFC campaign off to a winning start against Dunsany in Dunshaughlin on Friday evening.

The match came to an abrupt end when, with just over a minute left on the clock, Kilbride's Cian Harford suffered a nasty injury. After a significant delay, the referee consulted with both sets of management teams, and it was agreed that there was no point in playing on so the final whistle sounded.

Kilbride largely dominated the first-half particularly in the middle third. That catapulted them into a six-point advantage at the break.

Kilbride had a few really good opportunities for goals in that first-half and had one or two of them gone in, it would have been curtains at the interval.

Credit to Dunsany, they fought their way back into the contest but Kilbride did enough in the second-half to seal the victory.

Adam Malone was on fire and finished with six points from play. Malone kicked off proceedings before he also put Kilbride two points to the good a few moments later.

Eoin Harkin got Dunsany's tally underway before Niall Flynn made the first of his several good saves to deny David O'Leary. Zak McGovern kicked a fantastic two-pointer a few minutes later to stretch Kilbride's lead to three after 10 minutes.

Over the course of the next 10 minutes, Kilbride outscored their opponents 0-4 to 0-1. Malone provided three of Kilbride's scores during this period which increased his personal tally to 0-5 after only 20 minutes.

Alex Brady and Andrew McWeeney traded blows before Flynn made another good save just before the interval, this time, he denied Malone from raising a green flag. At half-time, Kilbride led 0-9 to 0-3.

Josh Harford and Harkin traded frees after the restart and then Flynn made his most acrobatic stop of the evening from Timmy Farrell's attempt on goal.

Brady and Jack Cottrell kept to their task and hit two fine efforts for the 2024 JFC champions but those points were answered by scores from Josh Harford and Malone.

In the closing stages, Harkin hit a brace of points to get Kevin Cahill's men back to within five. James Cahill had an opportunity for a goal late on but his effort was too high and only a white flag was raised.

Soon after, Cian Harford was involved in a collision which brought the clash to a slightly premature end.

Kilbride - Luke Faherty; Cian Harford, Ronan O'Leary, Mark Dempsey; Anthony Baker, Finn White, Andrew McWeeney (0-1); Dan Boyd, Timmy Farrell; Josh Harford (0-2 two frees), James Gavin, Gareth Rooney; David O'Leary (0-2), Zak McGovern (0-2 one two-point), Adam Malone (0-6). Subs - James Browne for McGovern 35m, Adam Smith for Baker 50m, Fiachra Gorman for Josh Harford, Craig Manning for Dempsey both 57m, Calbhach O Ceallaigh for Rooney 61m.

Dunsany - Niall Flynn; Alexander Smyth, Alex Brady (0-2), David Hackett; Gavin Byrne, Harry Cahill, Pauraic Burke; Lorcan Byrne, James Cahill (0-1); Cian O'Sullivan, Eoin Harkin (0-4 three frees), Mark Horan; Kris Gorman, Declan Smyth, Jack Cottrell (0-2). Subs - Shane Brennan for Horan half-time, Kyle Donnelly for O'Sullivan, Noah Conroy for Gorman both 45m.

Referee - Keith Sheerin (Drumconrath).