Tummery Athletic 3 Lisbellaw United 2

Tummery Athletic progressed to the next round of the Mulhern Cup at the expense of Lisbellaw United, as they won the opening round’s most high-profile tie.

An own goal gave the reigning league champions the lead, and goals from Blain Campbell and Paudi Dillon ensured they bounced back from their Junior Cup elimination the previous week.

“I was happy with both the result and the performance, and it was a good response from last week,” said Tummery manager Ryan Hanna.

“I was really pleased with the first half. The first 10 minutes was helter-skelter, but after that we looked the most likely to score.

“In the second half, I was disappointed with the nature of the goals we gave away.

“Lisbellaw were a big threat from set pieces and scored from a free kick and a corner. We let them back into the game, but we reacted really well to conceding, and scored within 60 seconds, and that took the sting out of them.

“We were a wee bit nervy, considering what happened last week, but we defended really well at 3-2 and probably should have scored again.”

Lisbellaw boss Kyle McCleery acknowledged that their first-half performance cost them the tie.

“In the first half they were on top,” he conceded.

“We didn’t really turn up and we didn’t have too many chances. At half time we were 2-0 down, and I was disappointed with how we were playing, but in fairness we rolled up our sleeves and came back into it.”

Sending off

Lisbellaw’s comeback was stalled by the sending off of Richard Woods ten minutes from full time, but McCleery felt his side were on the wrong end of a number of decisions from referee Martin Crawford.

“Credit to our lads for pushing them all the way, despite being down to ten men, but I felt that the referee was very poor towards us. He gave a lot of really strange decisions, and it really disrupted us and meant we couldn’t get into any sort of rhythm whatsoever.

“It is as poor a refereeing performance as I have seen in a long time, and that is saying something.

“But when we look at ourselves we just didn’t play well enough on the day.”

Tummery took the lead after 25 minutes in fortuitous circumstances when Lisbellaw goalkeeper Sam McDonald raced out to a through ball and smashed a clearance off defender Nathan Graham that ricocheted into his own net.

The home team then added a second at the end of the first half. Martin Hughes’ shot was touched around the post by a diving McDonald, but from James Garrity’s corner kick, Blain Campbell found himself unmarked six yards from goal, and he stooped to head in the opening goal.

Five minutes into the second half Lisbellaw halved the deficit when David Freeman’s free kick found centre back Jamie Coalter in space at the back post, and he side-footed past Niall McCrory.

It was a short-lived celebration for Lisbellaw however as Tummery restored their two-goal cushion straight from the kick-off.

Lisbellaw felt there was a foul on Lewis Vance in the build up, but the referee waved away their appeals and Paudi Dillon fired in the cut back from six yards out.

Lisbellaw pulled back to within a goal when Freeman’s cross was converted by Jamie Coalter, but in the 80th minute Richard Woods received a second Yellow Card, and Tummery held on against ten men to set up a clash against Killen in the next round.