Aclare Plastics 1-7, Allergan 0-8

ACLARE Plastics were crowned Connacht Inter-Firms Senior champions for the first time when they had two points to spare (1-7 to 0-8) over Westport side, Allergan Pharmaceuticals, in an exciting provincial decider on Saturday last.
Conditions were wet and windy at the west Mayo venue but the game, while never going to be in contention for ‘fixture of the year’, was of sufficient quality to keep the crowd interested for the hour.
Aclare Plastics, a south Sligo firm, deserved their triumph.
They were that bit better than their opponents and they recovered well after a slow start to build up a six-points interval lead.
The winners had the strong wind at their backs in the first period but their early return was paltry, just one point with 20 minutes played.
Their cause was not helped when they lost their key attacker, Sligo Senior Gerry McGowan, to an injury after just five minutes.
But even he would not have been able to provide a solution to the wayward kicking of the winners’ attack early on.
Some credit must go to the Allergan defence – particularly PJ Derrig, Alan Flannery and James Fahy – for their efforts but by and large the Aclare attack seemed to have left their scoring boots in the dressing room.
An excellent goal after 20 minutes by the impressive Brendan Egan gave the south Sligo-based side the lift they needed and further points from Pat Harte, John Marren and substitute Thomas Quinn helped them to a seven-points lead.
The first-half was in injury-time when James Horan pointed Allergan’s first score of the day to leave the interval score in favour of Aclare Plastics (1-4 to 0-1).
An early Brendan Egan point put Aclare even further ahead after the restart and it didn’t look good for Allergan.
But the home side worked their way back. Neil Chambers landed two points and though Aclare had a goal disallowed, the force was with Allergan.
Former Mayo Minor Dwayne Flynn shot over when he had a goal at his mercy and James Horan did likewise when he landed the second of his two rapid-fire points in the 14th and 15th minutes of the second-half. Allergan had the deficit down to two points at this stage and when James Gillespie fired over an inspirational line ball there was just one score in it.
When midfielder Tom McGreal sent over the equaliser with two minutes to play Allergan looked likely winners.
However, Aclare Plastics never panicked and they worked the ball up towards the Allergan goal.
Pat Harte, influential throughout, gave them the lead with the game in injury-time and the same player wrapped it up for Aclare with another point deep into stoppage-time.

Allergan (Westport) M Conway, A Flannery, PJ Derrig, D Donnellan, J Fahy, R Gibbons, P Gavin, T McGreal (0-1), D Keane, D Flynn (0-1), M Goggins, D Heneghan, N Chambers (0-2, 1f), J Horan (0-3), A Ball
Subs used J Gillespie (0-1), E Ball, P Quinn
Aclare Plastics (Sligo) D Egan, N Manley, J Hayes, C Neary, F Leonard, J Curley, D Dunne, P Harte (0-3, 1f), T Russell, S King, B Egan (1-1), S Dunne, P Devaney, G McGowan (0-1), J Marren (0-1)
Subs used T Quinn (0-1), M Cunnie