Irvinestown 3-17 Newtownbutler 0-08

Irvinestown maintained their pursuit of an immediate return to Division One with a comfortable win over Newtownbutler earlier this week.

Goals from Barry Goodwin, Mattie McDermott and Josh Largo-Elis set Shane McDermott’s side on their way to a fourth win from five.

Their only dropped points came against Teemore last Friday evening in a 1-10 to 0-13 draw.

Irvinestown wasted little time storming into an early lead at St. Molaise’s Park on Tuesday.

They had a host of different scorers with Josh Largo-Elis, Conor O’Hanlon, Michael Mahon, Jack Largo-Elis, Joey Millar, Kevin Duffy, Ronan Ormsby and Barry Goodwin all splitting the posts.

Goodwin scored their opening goal when he was fouled running through on goal before stepping up himself to convert the spot-kick.

Mattie McDermott added a second before the halfway point as Newtownbutler surrendered possession from their own kickout allowing McDermott to run through and finish low to the net.

Conor Courtney opened Newtownbutler’s scoring but they could only add three more points in the first half with Diarmuid King on target with some good free kick taking as the sides went into halftime at 1-14 to 0-04.

Newtownbutler were unable to close the gap in the second half and only added another four points through King, Kealan Fitzpatrick and Sean Conlon in a disappointing display and suffered another couple of injuries in the process.

Irvinestown pushed on in the final 30 minutes and showed why they are considered frontrunners to go straight back into Division One.

From the second-half throw-in, O’Hanlon won the ball and ran towards goal before playing in midfield partner Josh Largo-Elis to add a third goal and put the result beyond doubt.

McDermott, Goodwin and Ormsby tagged on points to wrap up the win.

On Friday evening, it took a last-minute goal from Conor Courtney to rescue Newtownbutler away to Coa as they snatched a 1-12 to 0-13 win against the O’Dwyers, taking their league record to two wins and three losses so far.

“I think we had three subs, we just don’t have a big squad at the minute with injuries and holidays, but that’s where we are,” said Newtownbutler manager Frank Mulligan after Tuesday’s game against Irvinestown.

“It was a poor performance, there’s nothing really positive to take out of that result. It wasn’t pretty and (the last two games) have been nowhere near good enough.”

Speaking on the win over Coa, he added: “We got out of jail, it was a real wake-up call. We literally robbed Coa, we had Jordan Warren sent off in the first five minutes which didn’t help and then our goalkeeper got a black card with 10 minutes to go, so, we had 13 men and we were lucky to pull it back.”