St.Macartans Win Derby To Advance

Saturday 30.08.2025

Championship Football

Augher 3-9 Eskra 0-13

It was a case of third time lucky for Augher at Dunmoyle on Saturday afternoon as after two defeats in the league at the hands of Eskra they knocked their neighbours out of the Connollys Of Moy Tyrone Junior championship at the first hurdle.

The St.Macartans were full value for their victory on an evening when they laid the foundations in the first half with an assured display to go in on level terms despite playing against the wind. To their credit though Eskra made a real fight of it in the second half after falling behind but with both sides down to fourteen men a late Tiernan McElroy goal got Augher over the line.

Cormac Hughes had the opening two scores for the Emmett as on both occasions he used his speed to dart in from the right wing to fist over the bar. In the 7^th minute though Augher grabbed their first goal when a great pass from Darragh Kavanagh found Declan Connolly and the GO Power man of the matchy finished to the net in style. Eskra responded with a well taken score from outside the arc from wing half back Conor O’Hagan but efforts from Dara Donnelly and Kavanagh left it all square at the break, 1-3 to 0-6.

In the opening minute of the second half Kavanagh converted a penalty after he had been fouled himself and when Raymond McElroy and the impressive Martin McElhatton tagged on points they moved five clear. Eskra were in trouble but they knuckled down to win a lot of ball around the middle third and points from Hughes, O’Hagan and Rory Kinsella saw them close the gap to two going into the final quarter. Kavanagh converted a superb two pointer from a free but a Kinsella free left everything up for grabs again before Kavanagh placed McElroy for the game winning goal in injury time.