’Booters up to second in league title race
Freebooters got over last week’s disappointing LFA O’Neills Junior Cup loss to New Oak from Carlow as they beat Deen Celtic in the latest round of fixtures in the St Canice’s Credit Union Premier Division.
’Booters scored four goals in a relatively convincing 4-1 success in Castlecomer as two of the top three came face to face.
Opening half goals from Jim Ryan and Jamie Holden gave the city side the early advantage and although Deen Celtic battled back, two more Ryan goals that sealed his hat-trick helped Freebooters move above their city rivals Evergreen in the league standings.
Freebooters are in a decent position as it stands having won six of their seven games to date. They’ll be very confident of overtaking Deen Celtic as they only trail them by a point with three games in hand.
The only loss for Freebooters came against Evergreen and despite only playing five games, the Kells Road-based defending champions still hold a 100% record.
Elsewhere in the Premier Division there was a nine goal thriller between Highview Athletic and Clover United at the Harristown-Astro Pitch on Saturday night.
It was a meeting of the division’s bottom two sides but Highview’s wait for a first league win of the season went on with the Laois side claiming a 6-3 win on the road.
It now means that Highview have lost all but one of their 10 league outings this term in what has been a very frustrating season to date.
League favourites Evergreen are competing on a number of different fronts and one of those pursuits continued on Saturday as they rounded off the group stages of the Leinster Senior Cup with a 5-0 home success against Wexford.
The Kilkenny side currently sit second in the table behind Bray but Shelbourne still have to play Wexford this weekend so qualification for Evergreen seems unlikely.
Evergreen’s only loss thus far came away to Shels last Tuesday and they bounced back with a five-star showing against Wexford on Saturday.
Goals from Mikey Drennan, David Grincell, Dylan Lawless and Ethan Phelan, which all arrived in the opening period, saw Evergreen prove much too good for a youthful Wexford side who are already turning their attention to the start of the League of Ireland season in a few weeks’ time.
Evergreen will quickly move on from this result themselves as they get set for arguably their biggest game of the season thus far when they play host to St Michael's of Tipperary Town in the next round of the FAI Junior Cup on Sunday afternoon (2pm).
The Bank Holiday meant it was a reduced schedule over the weekend with just one game in the KCLR Scoreline.ie Division One where River Rangers had a 3-1 win over Evergreen’s third string selection.
The win pushes River Rangers level on points with Evergreen C at the bottom of the table.
Elsewhere there was three ties in the Division Two Emerald Tiles League with all of the games taking place on Sunday morning.
River Rangers B and Thomastown United B shared six goals in a 3-3 draw while there were also wins for East End United over St John’s and Highview Athletic B against Deen Celtic B.