St. Joseph’s Charlestown……….3   Ballymote…………………..9

St. Joseph’s were back on their travels again on Monday last where they encountered a Ballymote team propelled by a Sligo Rovers magician in a thoroughly entertaining goal fest in Castlebar.Credit to both teams for putting on such a great display, in weather conditions that were anything but conducive to good football. Having said that, the level of skills on display was second to none.

The game started in bright fashion for Ballymote when a harmless enough cross, after 3 minutes, was carried in the wind and deceived the Charlestown goalkeeper and there to tuck in the lead goal was a Ballymote forward. The teams were on level terms a couple of minutes later when Luke Dunleavy struck with an absolute pile driver from 25 yards, his third in as many matches! It was really end to end stuff at this stage.S.t Joes grew in confidence, Forkan smothered a good Ballymote chance and the ball went down the field where a combination of the weather conditions and Charlestown pressure forced the Ballymote ‘keeper into error. Paddy Goldrick was on hand to finish from close range and put his side 2-1 in front. The afore mentioned Ballymote Sligo Rovers live wire grew into the game and was on hand immediately to equalise and while Mitrovic and Mahon combined to win a corner that Lenehan blazed over  it was the Sligo boys that pressed home their advantage with a breakaway goal. A further goal before the half time break gave the away side an advantage that they were never going to lose. Just before the break, birthday boy Conor O’Toole and Dunleavy had half chances blocked.

The second half started with a refereeing error, a foul just outside the box was deemed, incorrectly, by the whistle-blower to have taken place inside the area and a penalty was awarded which was dispatched to the net by Ballymote to make it 5-2.The second half proceeded in the same way as the first with chances galore falling to both sides. The only difference was the ability of Ballymote to extract full profit, by way of goals, from their efforts while Charlestown had to make do with near misses. More goals were scored, even a blatantly offside one, in the eyes of both teams, by the away side. The referee did not have a good day! The final goal of the day came by way of an Adam Craig corner which was bundled into the net by Eoin Beirne to leave the final score 9-3 in favour of Ballymote who were the better team on the day and stuck to their task manfully despite the inclement weather.