Downtown Cup Semi Finals Reports
2012-04-14 17:15:00
Kilmacrennan Celtic Reserves and Glencar Celtic will contest the final of this season's Downtown Cup as they both came through their respective semi finals at Ballyare today. The first match saw Kilmacrennan face Fintown Harps AFC who were playing in the club's biggest game in their relatively short history. It was Fintown who had the better of the first half and should have been in front at the interval however they didn't convert their supremacy into goals and it remained level at the break. Fintown were reduced to ten men within five minutes of the re-start and as the half wore on Kilmacrennan started to get the better of things. With seventy two minutes gone Kevin Mc Menamin set up Darren Mc Ginley on the edge of the box and the striker rifled the ball into the top corer of Leon Thompson's net. Fintown forced extra time when Darragh Gallagher chased a ball in the Kilmacrennan box and he cut inside Johnny Doherty who was unfortunate to catch the winger and the referee pointed to the spot. Gallagher gathered himself together and dispatched the penalty past Mark Gallagher in the kilmacrennan net. Midway through the second half of extra time Kilmacrennan were awarded a penalty when Paddy Mc Fadden fouled Shaun O' Donnell and Kevin Mc Menamin scored to send Kilmacrennan Celtic through to the decider. Their opposition in the final will be Glencar Celtic who had an easier passage through to the final. Unlike Fintown, Glencar converted their first half chances and found themselves three goals to the good by the interval. The Letterkenny side got off to the best possible start and went ahead in the fourth minute. Declan Scanlon sent in a speculative ball from the left wing and it deceived everyone to crash off the inside of the far post and nestle in the Erne net. They doubled their lead on twenty six minutes when Anthony Doherty played a long ball out of defence to Paddy Rafferty and as the Erne defence stood off the Glencar forward he made good use of the space and he poked the ball past the outrushing keeper. On thirty minutes Rafferty robbed Darren Mc Nulty in the centre circle and went on a left wing run to the by-line from where he sent in a dangerous low cross which the retreating Erne sweeper David Dorrian couldn't avoid and he deflected the ball past Karl O' Brien for an own goal. Erne got a consolation goal eight minutes into the second half when their striker Michael Ward was involved in a collision with Glencar keeper Dominic Friel and the Erne men were awarded a penalty by referee Mike Slator. Dermot Slevin scored from the spot but it was never going to be more than a consolation as Glencar were the better side on the day and never looked like throwing away their advantage. So it will be Kilmacrennan Celtic Reerves and Glencar Celtic in the final on a date yet to be confirmed as the season reaches it's latter stages.