Late goals seal Kirk Cup defeat for Raphoe

After a week off last week Raphoe were on their travels again with a trip to South Antrim in their second Kirk Cup group game.

Raphoe 0

South Antrim 3

With a few players absent Raphoe took the opportunity to use this game to prepare for their remaining Premier League games, a few tactical tweaks from Lee Stewert worked well for the majority of the game.

The deadlock remained intact at the half-time break and in the third quarter Raphoe started to find the gaps through Antrims rearguard, Tom Eaton and James Wilson winning a couple of penaly corners.

Simon Goudie's first effort was saved by the goalie and his second was superbly cleared off the line.

As the third quarter came to an end, Raphoe lost the ball while on the attack, Antrim found themselves three players to the good against Raphoe, James Wilson having no choice but to concede a penalty corner.

From the resulting corner, Davy Moore's save deflected unfortunately onto Alan Meehan's foot on the goalline, penalty stroke awarded and dispatched by Antrim midfielder Adam Glass.

Raphoe thought they had equalised straight away, a smart quickly taken free by George Patterson who drove at the heart of the Antrim defence, his pass found James Wilson who squared it for Luke Johnson to finish superbly.

After long protests from the South Antrim players, the umpires came to a decision that the initial free was taken from the wrong place and play was brought back and goal disallowed.

Raphoe entered the final quarter needing two goals for the win but two early sin bins for Simon Goudie and Evan Lyttle left Raphoe with only nine players on the pitch.

South Antrim capitalised late on with two penaly corners before the end, James Brown and Daniel McElhinney with the goals/.

Raphoe: D.Moore, A.Meehan, S.Goudie, E.Lyttle, Z.West, G.Patterson, T.Eaton, J.Wilson, J.Watt, T.Porter, L.Johnson, C.Johnson, B.Boal, I.McGonigle, S.McKnight, L.Stewart