Irvinestown 0-08 Tempo 0-08

Irvinestown and Tempo shared the spoils at St. Molaise’s Park in their opening fixture of the 2024 season.

The sides met back in last year’s Intermediate Championship group stage and it was another tight affair on Saturday with neither side giving much away and still missing a number of players.

Ryan Keenan and Ryan Cassidy have taken over Tempo this year with the latter pleased with his side’s work in their first Club Players’ game.

“It was a tit-for-tat game, there wasn’t really much between the sides all the way through,” Cassidy said.

“I thought it was a decent start to the league. We were just glad to get up and running and to get games in the boy's legs at this time of year, I thought it was a solid start.

"We had played three (challenge) games but that was probably the toughest test the boys have had so far. It's always competitive in Division Two in Fermanagh and the game kind of panned out that way.”

Meanwhile, Shane McDermott has come into the Irvinestown senior team hot seat after taking the minor team last year.

“It was grand, the first day out, lots to learn from it,” McDermott said after the game.

“We got a draw, it was a very defensive game I suppose. But listen, a few lads missing as well so it was grand.

"I suppose when we were three points down you would have taken a draw, but when you’re a point up and Tempo come back to draw it, it switches the other way, but a draw was probably fair enough in the end up.”

Lorcan McStravick opened Tempo’s account with a couple of early points while Ronan Ormsby hit back for Irvinestown at the other end.

Darragh McCaffrey converted a free for the Maguires while Kevin McDonell and Paul Leonard responded.

With little to separate the sides at halftime, Tempo eventually broke into a three-point lead going 0-07 to 0-04 ahead with Sean Corry, Stephen Fee and McStravick splitting the posts.

However, Irvinestown would hit back with Ormsby, Gary Maguire and Ben McCann all on target to put the home side in front heading into the final few minutes.

Tempo would hit the final score of the game to level things as substitute Niall McElroy found space to fire over, in injury time, to make sure the sides made an unbeaten start to the season.