Relief as Beragh registers a first league win

WES Ferguson admitted that relief was the overriding emotion after his team Beragh chalked up their first win of the season by defeating new boys Irvinestown Wanderers 4-0 at Fountain Lane on Saturday.

Three goals in the opening 23 minutes laid the foundation for victory with Eamon McGrath, Cameron Crook and Kris Hamilton all netting in a blistering opening spell for Swifts.

A 57th minute penalty by Stephen Browne wrapped up the points on what had been a bad day at the office for Darren Higginbotham’s Irvinestown.

Wanderers had Dwayne Carleton red carded for disputing that penalty decision and in the first half Gary Maguire failed to convert a spot-kick at 3-0.

Beragh’s first three points lifts them out of the relegation zone and, much to relief of Ferguson, up to ninth in the table.

“One hundred per-cent, it was nice to get the first win,” he said.

“We would rather that it had come sooner than now but it’s been a case that we have been playing well but mistakes have been killing us.

“But today all our basics were to a tee; we defended well, we worked hard off the ball, and we thoroughly deserved the result from the performance which was pleasing.

“Results haven’t been going our way this season but we haven’t been playing badly. Individual errors and not doing what we did today – the basics well – was costing us.

“The boys have worked hard, they have kept going. They worked really hard in training this week and today they were outstanding to be fair. The work rate off the ball was second to none.”

A mistake by Barry Goodwin allowed McGrath to run through and open the scoring for Beragh with just 10 minutes on the clock.

The hosts pushed on looking to build on that early shot in the arm, and, after a good run and shot by Luke Henderson, Crook was on hand to tap home goal number two.

Things got even better for Beragh on 23 minutes when Hamilton headed home a corner at the back post.

Wanderers were left shell-shocked but they were offered an opportunity to get back in the game when referee Liam Shannon awarded a penalty for foul on Goodwin but Maguire failed to convert the resultant spot-kick.

That suggested it wasn’t going to be Wanderers’ day and so it proved.

Just before the hour mark, the match official again pointed to the spot when Kris Hamilton went down under a challenge from Wanderers keeper Jerome Carleton and a defender.

The visitors disputed the decision and that resulted in Dwayne Carleton receiving his marching orders. Browne made no mistake from the spot to effectively end the visiting challenge.

Irvinestown stalwart Martin Lynch admitted it had been a day when anything that could have gone wrong did go wrong.

“It was a bad, bad day at the office,” he said.