Eire Og Derriaghy GAC

Senior Football Team 2006

The season ends with Eire Og in mid table. Senior Footballers lose to evetual winners, Ardoyne, 1-16 to 2-07 in the semi final of Junior Championship

Click here for Senior Hurling details!

Division 4 - League Results

Eire Og 1-07 1-10 St Paul's L
Rossa 0-00 0-00 Eire Og TBC
Eire Og 1-06 2-16 Lamh Dhearg L
Gort na Mona 0-13 1-10 Eire Og D
Eire Og 3-03 1-07 St Malachy's W
O'Donnell's 0-12 1-07 Eire Og L
Eire Og 2-09 2-11 Rasharkin L
Cargin 4-11 2-08 Eire Og L
St Paul's DNF WO Eire Og W
Eire Og WO DNF Rossa W
Lamh Dhearg 2-11 1-12 Eire Og L
Eire Og 1-10 1-10 Gort na Mona D
St Malachy's 2-10 0-07 Eire Og L
Eire Og 2-09 0-03 O'Donnell's W
Rasharkin 0-12 0-07 Eire Og L
Eire Og WO DNF Cargin W
Match Reports

Eire Og's opening match hoodoo still stands as they again lost their first league match against a strong St Pauls side. But the Ogs should've won as St Pauls had a man sent off in the first half. They seemed to struggle with the extra man advantage and went off at half time 4 points to 3 down, having played with the wind. They were soon ahead in the second half as a Gareth McLaverty coolly taken goal gave them a two point lead. Points were exchanged by both sides until St Pauls caught the Ogs on the break and netted at the second attempt. From then on the Ogs were playing catch up and couldn't get the goal they needed. Scorers for the Ogs included Gareth McLaverty(goal) and Adrian O'Reilly, Emmett Holmes, JP Dunney, Paul Taggart, Peter Elliott.

Eire Og then lost out to a more determined Rossa side in a rearranged match. The first half was even enough despite the Ogs conceding two soft goals and missing some scoreable chances. At half time the Ogs trailed 2-2 to 0-3, the points coming from Peter Elliott(2 frees) and Emmett Holmes. However, the second half saw the Ogs' heads fall and it was a one sided half for Rossa. Despite a poor overall team peformance, Barry O'Hare, Niall Rice and Gareth McLaverty all played well, with McLaverty scoring a well taken goal. Other scorers included Colm McAuley and John Devlin.

Eire Og were second best to a strong Lamh Dhearg side whose accurate shooting and good teamwork won the day for them. Yet the Ogs had the first chance – a shot drifting wide was fisted back towards goal by the full forward and hit the post. After that though, it was one way traffic. Rowan Vernon, Ogs keeper, had a great game, making several point blank saves, but was unlucky when the ball rebounded to a Lamh Dhearg forward after one such save for an easy goal. Points from Emmett Holmes(free), Fra Grimley and Conor Wills gave the Ogs hope for the second half, though too many wrong decisions were taken when attacking. The score at the interval was 1-07 to 0-03.
Lamh Dhearg came out full confidence for the second half and continued where they left off. Despite getting a lucky goal, rebounding in off an Eire Og defender for an OG, they rattled over the points as the Ogs looked ragged. But, with the game lost, Eire Og suddenly started to play some good football. Gareth McLaverty scored a superb goal and further points were added by Holmes, McLaverty and Elliott. Seamus Holmes had a great game at half back, Kieran Ryan also defended well, while up front McLaverty and Emmett Holmes were constant threats.

Eire Og came away from Gort na Mona very disappointed with a draw in a game they could easily have won. A Gerry O'Reilly point early on gave the Ogs the lead but Gort rallied and dominated the first 15 minutes. Rowan Vernon, the Ogs keeper, made a superb point blank save in what was to be his only worrying moment. A Gareth McLaverty free and another O'Reilly point steadied the Ogs, before Damien McMullan fisted a goal that brought the Ogs just one point behind at the interval.
The second half belonged to the Ogs, but the concession of soft frees and wayward shooting meant that Gort were never out of it. McLaverty, Paul Taggart, Fra Grimley all added points in an end to end match. Taggart had a great chance to hit the winning score but shot just wide.
This was the Ogs' best performance of the season. Seamus Holmes, Gavin McLaughlin and the two Ryan brothers played well in defence, Conor Wills and Colm McAuley linked defence and attack well throughout at midfield, while up front McLaverty had his usual good game along with McMullan, Grimley, O'Reilly and Cochrane.

The Ogs travelled to Toome to take on Cargin but ended up losing 4-11 to 2-8. Eire Og saw their first 4 shots fall short into the keeper’s hands, while Cargin got a couple of scores including a goal. Eire Og then got 5 unanswered points, with Dino McMullan slotting over a few free kicks, then Cargin came down and scored another goal due to poor defending. The Ogs scored another 2 points to keep themselves in it but then the Toome men came down and scored another goal - bad defending letting men run through. 3-3 to 0-7 at half time.
In the second half Eire Og weren’t great, Cargin kept running through, putting up a good few points, catching the kick outs far too easily and then taking another goal which was well taken, keeper Vernon having no chance. Then whether Cargin took their foot off the pedal through complacency or Eire Og suddenly woke up, the Ogs started playing, got a penalty, which Gaggs McLaverty coolly slotted away. The Ogs got some more points but Cargin were still scoring a few too in an end to end game. Eire Og then got another goal to bring the margin down but the gap was too large at this point.

Eire Og took maximum points with a strong performance against O'Donnells to regain some confidence after a poor showing in their last match. Playing with the strong wind in the first half the Ogs raced to a 7 points to 2 lead by the interval. The Ogs expected O'Ds to really come at them in the second half but when Fra Grimley's long range effort was held up in the wind and fell short, the O'Donnells keeper misjudged the flight of the ball and could only palm it into the back of the net. This goal put the Ogs in the driving seat and put the wind out of O'Ds sails. Despite the strong wind behind them O'Donnells could not break throught he excellent Ogs full back line of the Ryan brothers, Neil and Kieran, and Fergal Gribben. The second half was a low scoring affair as Eire Og held O'Donnells at arm's length. In the final minute, Ogs keeper, Rowan Vernon, produced an excellent point blank save and from the resulting clearance the ball was worked upfield to Niall Rice who netted to finish the game off in style. Eire Og's defence was outstanding - young Niall Cochrane had his best senior game at half back, the full back line was impenetrable and Seamus Holmes linked the defence and attack well. McAuley, McMullen and Grimley won plenty of ball in around midfield, Paul Taggart had a great game at centre three quarters, Aidso O'Reilly and Gareth McLaverty looked sharp throughout and were rewarded with points, while Sean McKenna and Niall Rice at full forward constantly caused the O'Ds defence problems.

Eire Og traveled to Reasharkin understrength, but put in a good showing and could consider themselves unlucky not to take something from the game. They matched the home side in a keenly contested first half, in which the lead was exchanged a few times, Niall Rice(2) and Sean McKenna scoring for the Ogs as they went in 4-3 down at the interval.
Eire Og let themselves become distracted at some of the referee’s dubious calls at the start of the second half and were slow off the mark, as St Mary’s scored 3 points without reply in 10 minutes. The Ogs came back into it as the game opened up but that 10 minute lapse had created the eventual winning margin. Eire Og had chances to net but Rice was unlucky to see his shot saved and McKenna blasted over the bar from close range. The Ogs keeper had to rush off his line to prevent a certain goal when he challenged the full forward in a tackle Brian O’Driscoll would have been proud of. Due to the late throw in it was getting harder to see clearly in the fading light but the final score was 0-12 to 0-07 to Rasharkin.
The Ogs defence was excellent and never looked like conceding a goal. The full back line of McCooey, Muldoon and George were always on top and half backs and half forwards Gribben, Seamus Holmes, Elliott, Quinn and McLaverty picked up a lot of breaking ball and tackled well, supporting McMullen and McAuley who battled well in midfield. Up front Emmet Holmes and Niall Rice constantly threatened the Rasharkin defence with their speed and trickery.


Junior Football Championship
Quarter Final: Eire Og WO v DNF Ballymoney, Saturday September 23rd
Semi Final: Eire Og 2-07 v 1-16 Ardoyne, Saturday September 30th


Challenge Matches

Good test against Junior Champions
The Ogs beat St Malachy?s by a couple of points but didn't play all that well. St Malachy's had good shape, were mobile and will be a threat this year. They managed to stay in the Junior Championship so they could well be our biggest rivals - the other teams (at the last count) being St Pat's Lisburn, Ballymoney, Ballycastle, Antrim, Mitchell's and O'Donnells.
The score yesterday was 1-8 to 0-9. Emmet Holmes had his first game back after minor surgery, he scored 1-3 and was generally excellent. Colm McAuley played rightly at midfield with Adrian O?Reilly who got a nasty injury when his shoulder seemed to be 'slightly' dislocated.
There were Senior Football debuts for Damien McMullan (Dino), Michael Teague, Niall Rice, Niall Cochrane and Declan Rice. All did very well but Dino deserves an extra mention. He started at centre-half forward and went to mid-field when O?Reilly went off.
Score at half-time was 1-3 to 0-4 for the Ogs. Og's scorers were Emmet Holmes 1-2 and Gareth McLaverty (Emmet's goal followed passage of crisp passing from half-backs up to full forwards where Michael Teague's handpass put Emmet through on the keeper)
After the break both teams lost a wee bit of shape and basically traded points to the end. O'Reilly got 2, Emmet Holmes got another, McAuley got one and I think McMullan got one.
Missing from squad were: Conor Wills, JP Dunney, Peter Elliot, Sean McKenna, Seamus Holmes, Kieran Ryan, Lawrence Kelly, Johnny Quinn, Anto Donnelly and Keyvan Vesali


Click here for details of Eire Og in Provincial and All Ireland Competitions!

Click here for details on these past seasons:

1948 Senior Football Champions!
1967 Junior Hurling Champions!
1978 Division 3 Champions!
1979 Beringer Cup Winners!
1984 Eire Og Tournament Winners!
1985 Intermediate Football Winners!
1994 season
2001 Junior Football Champions!
2002 season
2003 season
2004 season
2005 season