Ballinteer St John’s continued their whirlwind start to Division One of the Adult Football League with a convincing 2-16 to 2-8 victory over Fingallians at Marlay Park on Sunday morning.
The southsiders already had four consecutive wins under their belt prior to the visit of the Swords men to Marlay. Since they got the better of Templeogue Synge Street on the opening weekend of the campaign, Fingallians’ form has drifted in an opposite direction to that of Ballinteer.
Following a narrow reversal to Naomh Maur in Lawless Park on March 3, they subsequently lost out to Lucan Sarsfields and defending champions St Vincent’s.
They struggled to build attacking momentum against the in-form Ballinteer – who created daylight courtesy of points from Aodhan Clabby, Donncha Carey and Robbie Gaughan.
A Fingallians goal turned up the heat on John’s, before the hosts re-established their superiority on the restart. Luke Naughton and Aaron Bradshaw both shook the Fingallians net to keep the Ballinteer challenge on the right track.
Although Fingallians maintained a strong threat in attack, Bradshaw, Carey and Micheal O Croinin raised a succession of white flags to preserve Ballinteer’s 100% opening to the top-tier season.
The win came just a few days after they recorded a 3-12 to 0-11 midweek triumph over St Oliver Plunkett’s/Eoghan Ruadh at Martin Savage Park.
It has Ballinteer top on 10 points with Ballyboden St Enda’s and Kilmacud Crokes just a points back, the only point either side has dropped coming in their draw with each other.
It continues an excellent run of form across the football teams at the Marlay club.
The junior A side did drop their first point in the league to Round Towers in mid week but they got back to winning ways against St Brendan’s.
In an extremely physical and competitive game, BSJ started well but failed to put enough on the scoreboard. However, the second 15 minutes of the first half saw them take control and build a five-point lead.
This was stretched out to eight points before Brendan’s started to fight back, pegging that back to six five minutes into injury time.
There were an unbelievable 14 minutes of injury time, though, during which Brendans bought it back to three points but Ballinteer held on for a much deserved 1-13 to 0-13 win.
For the club’s Junior B side, Cian Hallinan rescued a draw with a last minute free which he buried into the back of the net.
After a great first half, Scoil Ui Chonaill got a quick fire 1-3 just before half time to reduce the gap to six points going into the break.
Scoil came back and were on top most of the second half before that late equalising score, 2-13 to 1-16.
