Ballyholland relegated despite victory

You can only control the controllables and while Ballyholland did just that on Thursday evening by beating Carryduff in their final league fixture, they were still relegated to Division 2.

At the same time in Downpatrick, RGU were in the same situation against Burren but a point above Shane Mulholland's team in the table a win would see them safe.

It was a lot tighter in that match and it took a while for word to get through to Ballyholland that Downpatrick won 0-20 to 1-14.

An early goal put the home side into the lead for the first time in the match and they never relinquished it although Carryduff, who didn't put out their strongest squad with nothing left to play for finishing third, kept within a few points until the second half.

Ballyholland led 1-7 to 0-6 at half-time but held the visitors to just two more scores after the break, while they notched up five.

But, despite beating Carryduff by seven points Harps were relegated along with Saul.

“The league table doesn't lie and we are where we are,” said Mulholland after the game as he awaited word on the final result at Downpatrick – suspecting the worst.

“I just don't think we were good enough this year when it comes down to it. We conceded far too much , the worst defence in the league but actually going forward we were okay. We just haven't been able to get the balance right with the new rules. We have a few old hands who are probably going to retire now and that means the younger lads have to come through – there's nothing else for it. It's a shame because we feel like we've been building for a while but we haven't been able to get the young lads in with the older lads in the right timeframe. The older lads are moving on and it's a big ask for the younger lads. But, every club has the same challenge,”

“The big focus is on Glenn now, because they've had a great season.” said Mulholland directing his attention to their championship opener in a couple of week's time.

“They're up to Division 1 and we might be by-passing them, going down with them going up. But it should be a good championship match and we're looking forward to it. But if we go down tonight it's a bit of a hammer blow because it will be hard to lift them.”

But if we go down we deserve to go down because we just haven't done well enough this season, which is massively disappointing because we finished fifth last year and we thought we could build on that but it just hasn't happened.

We look forward to Glenn though because it's sort of a local derby. They'll be buoyant and will fancy their chances. But we can beat Glenn if we get our mind right. And this year too many times the mindset hasn't been right.”

Scorers:

Ballyholland Harps: Ian Campbell (1-0), Jack Murtagh (0-4, 1tp), Seamus Loughran (0-4,4f), Barry McAteer (0-1), Ruairi Campbell (0-1), Ryan Connolly (0-1), James Kearns (0-1)

Carryduff: Rory Anderson (0-4, 1tp), Dermot Donaldson (0-2,1tp), Tom McCarroll (0-1), Ryan Lavery (0-1)

Referee: Gavin Finnegan