Aghadrumsee 0-09 Newtownbutler 2-10

Newtownbutler began their season with a win at St. Macartan’s Park on Saturday, running out seven-point winners over a young Aghadrumsee side.

It’s a winning start for their new management team with joint-manager Frank Mulligan pleased with the performance: “It was pretty good, we were happy enough.

"We created a lot of chances, kicked too many wides but that will come in time really and kept a clean sheet, we were pretty happy with that. They set up very defensively but we done rightly.”

Speaking on their pre-season games, Mulligan added: “We had four or five but we never really had a full team out, still don’t have a full team out but we’ve given everyone chances with it being pre-season just to see how everyone was.

Meanwhile, new Aghadrumsee coach Jason O’Connor handed a number of debuts and was happy with how his side played.

“I was happy with the performance, we were missing 16-17 players that would be usually available for the first team,” he said.

“We had a lot of young boys playing there and about six or seven boys it was their first ever senior game.

"A lot of minors, couple of senior boys that wouldn’t have played a full senior game either and it was sink or swim for a few of them and each and everyone one of them stood up to it so I was very pleased with the performance.

"I told them after the game I was never as proud of a bunch of lads especially in defeat considering the work rate and energy levels, I was happy as we can be in defeat.

"We’ve had about five preseason games mainly Monaghan and Cavan teams, we played Donagh in a challenge game as well.

"We’ve blooded in a lot of lads coming up from minors and we’re just trying to get boys back to it.”

An early goal helped Newtown on their way as they took a 1-05 to 0-03 lead in halftime with Kealan Fitzpatrick leading the scoring netting a goal and six points with scores also coming from Lochlann King, Dylan Martin, Jason Flannagan and Adam McDonald.

Aghadrumsee kept within touching distance as Darren Kearns, Enda McCabe and Euan McNally all registered scores.

King delivered the final blow to seal the game after he neatly finished to the net from Sean Conlon’s knockdown to make it a seven-point win.