Bective played St Michael’s in this Intermediate first round match in Castletown on a wet and windy Friday night. Heavy sanding of the pitch tended to deaden the bounce of the ball and left low ball tricky to control, but this was a fast paced game with loads of exciting attacking football and swift movements, creating 8 goals in all. St Michael’s opened the scoring with a fine point. Bective’s Mark O’Brien finished to the net on 4 minutes after a fast attacking move involving many players. St Michael’s add another point before an overturned ball released by Cathal Mc Connell, who found Sean Keating in space to crash to the net on 9 minutes. Bective lost fullback Donagh Garvey to injury. St Michael’s stuck to their game plan and fired early ball in to their full forward line and fired over another point followed by 2 goals in quick succession. Ciaran Mc Connell and Kevin Brennan won a lot of possession at midfield and supplied good early ball to the Bective forward line. St Michael’s got many men behind the ball and held out the Bective attack, but Cathal Mc Connell fired over on 24 minutes. St Michael’s added a further point and then a goal, before a Marty Mulhall point and a Paul Mc Cabe pointed free kick concluded the first half scoring with Bective 2 – 4, St Michael’s 3 -4.
St Michaels opened with a point from play but Bective got the ball to Sean Keating to again hit the net on 3 minutes. St Michaels replied with two pointed frees and Keating and Mc Cabe (free) added points for Bective. Bective continued to strive to reduce the deficit and again Keating blasted to the back of the net and Bective added points from Mulhall (free) and Mc Connell to go ahead. However St Michaels continued with their game plan and managed to move the ball well from defence into attack and added 3 more points to go 1 up. With time almost up a long ball into the Bective square was deflected on by a Michaels’ player into the net. Paul Mc Cabe finished the scoring with a pointed free in injury time for a final score of St Michaels 4 – 12, Bective 4 – 9.
Bective Team: Darren Killian, Dara Maguire, Donagh Garvey, Craig Roche, Colin O’Rourke, Jack Grant, Paul Lyness, Ciaran Mc Connell, Kevin Brennan, Mark O’Brien, Cathal Mc Connell, Mark Dowdall, Sean Keating, Marty Mulhall, Paul Mc Cabe. Subs in; Mark Usher, Jack Clarke, Ben Malone.
