After a few disheartening defeats Kildress showed good spirit and plenty of footballing ability to get back on track with a 1-14 to 2-11 draw with Augher in a highly-entertaining game at Gortacladdy on Friday night past. The Tones got off to the worst possible start by conceding two early goals and another poor outcome looked very much on the cards. That’s where the spirit and good football kicked in however and, well-led by Matty McGuigan (0-5 overall) and Philip Lennon (1-1), Kildress totally turned things round to lead by 1-10 to 2-3 at half-time. In the second half, with, as always, Daire Kavanagh to the fore, Augher fought back to go ahead but Kildress would not let go and two wonderful long range frees from the very impressive Pauric Lagan helped them to a deserved share of the points. This, coming after a bad run of results, was a heartsome display from Kildress and in a good all-round display they had also sterling performers in Gerard Grimes, Tiernan McNamee, Marty McGurk, Dean McNally and Des Treacy.
In their previous game, on the previous Friday night, Kildress had shipped a heavy 0-5 to 1-12 home defeat to Gortin in a game where they were always second best. Three points down early on, points from Matty McGuigan and Enda McAleer brought them to within a point but that was as good as it got as Gortin pulled away again to lead by 0-5 to 0-2 at the break, though maybe feeling slightly nervous about their ten first half wides. They needn’t have worried however as their 1-5 without reply in the third quarter put this game to bed and Kildress points from Matty McGuigan (0-2) and Pauric Lagan (0-1) were of minimal consequence. Over the hour the Tones were brushed aside by an impressive St Patrick’s team, scoring only twice from play. Kildress tried hard through Gerard Grimes, Tiernan McNamee, Marty Loughran, Dean McNally, Des Treacy and Matty McGuigan but this was a night to forget against a superior team in a game well refereed by Cathal Forbes.
