Newmarket’s intermediate footballers opened their league campaign with a well earned victory away to Mayfield on Sunday by 1-9 to 0-7.

The heavy rain that preceded the game ensured soft and difficult ground conditions but Newmarket settled quickly as John Ryan slotted over a fine second minute point. Newmarket began brightly, playing an attractive brand of football and were rewarded with further pointed frees by John Ryan and John Lane after eleven minutes.

A feature of the half was some excellently distributed ball into the forward line while playing in a new position at left corner back, David O’Flynn was truly outstanding.

Mayfield registered their first point in the sixteenth minute but Newmarket replied with a well worked score finished by Denys O’Brien. The sides exchanged another two points with Newmarket maintaining a three point advantage thanks to a converted free from John Ryan. Mayfield however finished the half strongly, Newmarket were indebted to their excellent goalkeeper Niall O’Connor who pulled off a stunning close range save that eventually yielded a point in the twenty fifth minute. The home side closed out the half with two more points, which tied the teams for the only time at 0-5 apiece at the turnover.

Newmarket resumed with a point within two minutes as T.J. Bodie pointed a fine effort and they began a period of dominance with Mark Reidy a driving force throughout at midfield. Six minutes into the half the game took a significant swing in Newmarket’s favour as they were awarded a penalty when the lively John Lane was upended in the square and as so often in the past, Brian O’Riordan stepped up from defence to dispatch the ball to the corner of the net and in the process send the goalkeeper the wrong way. By the end of the quarter some more impressive approach play saw Tony O’Keeffe point to give Newmarket a five point advantage 1-7 to 0-5.

With the defence in fine form, Newmarket were able to add to their tally with another well taken score from T.J. Bodie while they were also guilty of not pressing home their advantage on a few other occasions. John Ryan slotted over an insurance point from a free as the clock ran down but the home side responded with two late points to cut the arrears as Newmarket held firm for a fine win.

The Newmarket team and scorers…

Brian O’Riordan (1-0), T.J. Bodie (0-2), John Ryan (0-4), John Lane (0-1), Denys O’Brien (0-1), Tony O’Keeffe (0-1)

Niall O’Connor
Michael O’Leary		Timothy Murphy		David O’Flynn
Matthew Fitzpatrick		Brian O’Riordan		Bart Daly
	Mark Reidy		Mark Murphy
T.J. Bodie		John Ryan		Gavin Forde
John Lane		Denys O'Brien		Tony O'Keeffe
Subs: Gerard Casey, Barry O’Leary, Sean Doody, Nicky Flanagan, Shane Murphy