All square in Armagh derby

Danske Bank MacRory Cup
St Patrick’s Armagh 0-8 St Ronan’s Lurgan 0-8
THERE was definitely frustration in Mattie McGleenan’s voice as he watched his St Patrick’s Armagh team come back from 0-7 to 0-0 down at the break to secure a draw through Oisin Conaty in wind-swept St Paul’s Lurgan yesterday evening.
“It is frustrating when you don’t register a score over the course of a half and then shoot 14 wides in the second half,” said the former Cavan manager, although he did acknowledge that the elements played a big part in the game.
“Here, the strength of the wind made it very difficult to play constructive football and St Ronan’s worked hard to cut out our options during the second half. We only had two or three wides against Magherafelt last week. Today we had too many.”
He singled out the contributions of Simon McGurk, Oisin Conaty and Mark McKeever while St Ronan’s will be pleased with the influence exerted by Oran McCafferty, Padraig McGuinness, Antóin McParland and free-taker Cian France.
Obviously St Ronan’s had wind advantage in the first half and, although they registered six wides, they nevertheless hit the target on seven occasions, four of those points coming from Cian Francis.
The wind dictated that Armagh would have the majority of possession after the break and they began to eat into the Lurgan lead with points from Kevin Robinson (2), James Walsh and Ryan Bradley before Lurgan, on a quick break, earned a free that France converted to stem the Armagh progress.
Gradually they got back in the grove though and Mark McKeever’s free left a point between the teams before Conaty levelled a couple of minutes from time.
St Patrick’s : Mark McKeever (0-2 frees), Kevin Robinson (0-2), James Walsh (0-1), Ryan Bradley (0-1), Lennox Kamara (0-1), Oisin Conaty (0-1)
St Ronan’s : Cian France (0-5, 0-4 frees), James McCormack (0-1), Oisin Ginesi (0-1), Antóin McParland (0-1)