Fullerton in red hot form for Carmen

Carrickmore 3-14  Clonoe 0-9

DANNY Fullerton, move to the centre of the stage and take a bow.

The Carrickmore forward has been in blistering form since the start of their league campaign, but he hadn’t produced anything quite like this, scoring a mammoth 3-9 in Friday evening’s win at home to struggling Clonoe.

He scored five points from play, four from frees but it was the manner in which he dispatched his hat-trick of goals that exemplified what makes him such a dangerous marksman at present. Clonoe goalkeeper Michael O’Neill, who hasn’t exactly been around a wet weekend, didn’t have a chance of stopping any of them.

As lethal as Fullerton undoubtedly was, he wouldn’t have had the chance to wreak havoc without the assistance of his teammates, who played sharp, engaging football right from the off-set. Take his first goal of the evening – Carmen stripped Clonoe off possession in the middle third and within seconds James Donaghy played in a perfectly judged through ball to Fullerton. He’d a bit to do and most players would likely have opted to take their point, but he unleashed an unstoppable shot to the corner of the net from 15 yards or so to move Carrickmore into a 1-3 to 0-2 lead.

Fullerton completed his hat-trick in the 45th minute, neatly converting from close-range, and on that occasion the provider was Lorcan McGarrity, back on club duty after Tyrone took an early bath from the championship.

McGarrity snaked through a number of challenges before playing a tricky hand pass across goal, so what we’re getting here is that Carrickmore in general were impressive even though there was a very obvious headline act delivering the cutting edge up front.

The home side surged into a 0-3 to no score lead after ten minutes with Fullerton landing two of those points, but Clonoe had their moments in the first-half with Fintan McClure proving himself a useful outlet up front. He got their account up and running with a ‘mark’ before Fullerton pounced for his first goal of the day in the 12th minute.

Clonoe kept on plugging away with points from McClure and Ryan Morrow, and they forced a fine save from Ryan McGarrity when Danny and Stephen McNulty interchanged passes before Pascal McClure’s shot was parried out for a ‘45’.

With Cormac Munroe making an entrance midway through the first-half and mopping up a lot of ball, Carmen remained in the ascendancy and tagged on two points in quick succession from Fullerton, whose confidence is presumably sky high at the moment.

Clonoe finished the half reasonably strongly with former Tyrone forward Connor McAliskey making a positive impact in a playmaker role, and Carmen were by no means out of the woods at half-time, carrying a 1-6 to 0-6 lead into the interval.

Noel Slane and Ciaran McBride’s side more or less dominated the remainder of the contest, however, quelling any chance of a Clonoe upset in a professional and efficient manner.

Fullerton continued where he left off with a scattering of points while Caolan Daly also got his name on
the scoresheet before Clonoe belatedly got their first score of the
second half with a Fintan McClure free.

it didn’t amount for a hill of beans as Fullerton effectively ended the game as a contest in the space of a few short minutes, scoring two fine goals to open up a virtually insurmountable 3-10 to 0-8 lead heading into the final quarter.

By the time he was subbed to warm applause from the Carmen faithful in the 54th minute, he had racked up a personal tally of 3-9.

His direct replacement Martin Penrose landed a late score, while their full-back line kept the door firmly shut down the other end as Clonoe tried to force a consolation goal that never came.

James Donaghy got the last point of the game, and a fine point it was too, but by that stage the game was long over as a contest and Carrickmore can reflect on another job well done well in what’s been a hugely productive start to the season.