'Heart in the mouth stuff' but relief for Ballinascreen heading towards Championship

IT was a dramatic evening in Glen on Friday last as Ballinascreen came out on top in a penalty shootout to overcome Lavey in the Division 1 Relegation playoff. 

“It was a tough, long night, heart in the mouth stuff for the whole evening,” summed it up perfectly by Carlos McWilliams following the game. 

'Screen came into the game having won just two of their 13 games in the league rooted firmly to the foot of the table and on the back of a 24 point drubbing to their opponents just eight days earlier. 

“It has been a tough year for us to date and to come out here tonight and get over the line, we are over the moon.

“We knew it was going to come down to one game no matter what if you were in the bottom two,” he said.

McWilliams always had faith that this side had a performance in them even though they had not found it in their previous games but with Benny Heron and Ryan Scullion coming back and a few injuries recovered elsewhere they were ready to fight for survival. 

“Look, we knew we had plenty of men to come back, our two county men are massive leaders for us, few lads also coming back from injury so we were fairly confident coming into this game we were going to get over the line.”

It was nip and tuck throughout, level at the break, a Heron free forcing extra time and then the Lavey equaliser from Niall Toner sending it to penalties. 

“Conditions led towards how the game was, a cagey affair, two teams that didn’t want to lose, there was a lot at stake and it was always going to come down to the wire and we braced ourselves for that but we didn’t think penalties all the same.”

The experienced McWilliams was not putting his name forward for a spot kick as he laughed. 

“If you saw me taking penalties you would know I was nowhere near the five,” he laughed before adding: “Young Antain Donnelly, kicking the winner, stood up to the plate, fair play to him. It takes leaders and it is great to see these young lads coming through and stepping up for us.” 

Now the attention will turn to the championship and this victory is the ideal way to be heading into that campaign.

“It is massive for us, as I have said we have had a poor year but we always knew we had this game in us and it will give us a good platform going forward, hopefully keep the injuries away and keep pushing forward now and have a good championship campaign.”