Maguiresbridge 3-1 Braid United
First-half goals from Euan Crawford, Ciaron Campbell and Adam Chartres aided Maguiresbridge to a 3-1 win over Braid United at Castle Park on Saturday.
Simon McCusker’s side have been rewarded with another home tie against Berlin Swifts Seniors in the fonaCAB Irish Junior Cup, at the start of October.
A Callum Lynch goal in the second half wasn’t enough for Braid as the Antrim club crashed out of the competition.
It was a first win for Maguiresbridge in the Junior Cup since beating Caledon Rovers in the second round, in 2021.
“It was nice to get through the first round,” said manager McCusker. “It’s not too often it happens, I think it was maybe a couple of years or even more when we played Caledon Rovers, that was the last time we got past the first round.
"We knew nothing about them (Braid United), we started with three at the back and it worked out thankfully.”
The home side made a positive start to proceedings on Saturday and took the lead with just eight minutes played.
Ciaron Campbell pulled back a corner along the Castle Park surface, to the edge of the box, as the oncoming Stuart Murphy stepped over the ball for Crawford to run onto it and find the net with a concise finish.
A threaded pass to Chartres was gathered by the forward and he played in Campbell he carried the ball through on goal and finished neatly for 2-0 with half an hour played in Lisnaskea.
The hosts found a third before the break as substitute Shane O’Neill picked up the ball in the middle of the park, after replacing Crawford, and despite coming under pressure from three United players came out with the ball and played Chartres in behind the opposition back four and he finished across goal past the goalkeeper to the bottom corner to make it a 3-0 halftime lead.
Braid pushed for a way back into the game after the break and they found a glimmer of hope as Maguiresbridge failed to clear their lines and the ball dropped for Lynch whose effort looped over the head of goalkeeper Dale Little and dropped in for 3-1.
Braid had a strong 15-minute spell following the goal with Little being called into action a couple of times but the home defence held strong to hold onto the two-goal lead.
Maguiresbridge return to action when they play Dunbreen Rovers this weekend but will be without some key names.
“We have Dunbreen now this weekend,” McCusker added. “We had Euan Crawford and Adam Chartres go off injured and there are boys away so I’m sure we are going to be short a few on Saturday too which is not ideal.”
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