Castlebar Town draw in frenetic league clash with Conn Rangers

Mayo Women’s Premier Division

Castlebar Town 1

S Mahon 30

Conn Rangers 1

N Garrett 60

In Moneen

With two minutes to go and tension at its peak, Castlebar Town’s Róisín Kelly was primed to capitalise with the goal at her mercy when ‘keeper Ailbhe Medlar missed her clearance.

However, the ball came at her too quickly, and when she lashed wide, Conn Rangers were able to breathe again and escape with a share of the spoils on Friday evening.

The visitors put the squeeze on the Castlebar side in the first half, and a lot of their best work came via their number nine, Clíodhna Flynn.

Flynn was the first to carve out an opportunity when she surged down the right flank after eight minutes, and Kira Bright got down well to make the save.

Town, in contrast, were struggling to make any inroads against the breeze, with the best effort of the opening innings on their behalf coming when striker Saoirse Mahon had a speculative long-range attempt.

Ailbhe Medlar had no issue getting her hands to that one.

While Rangers were the ones asking the majority of the questions, they were struggling to make any of their probing balls stick. In fact, one of Conn Rangers major difficulties was the form or Town's talismanic captain Amy Dowling who was hoovering up any ball that came her way.

With 15 minutes gone, Aine McClean played a clinical Conn ball over the top to Niamh Connolly wide out left, and Castlebar Town did well to clear.

Half an hour into the tie, Town the reigning Women’s Cup champions, showed why they're so highly revered, and they made one of their few opportunities count when Saoirse Mahon got on the end of a long throw-in to rattle the net.

Conn tried to put the squeeze on after half time, and it looked for all the world like Flynn was about to get them off the mark, but Bright did enough to tip the rasping effort over the top.

As the game progressed Castlebar looked to be putting their footprint on the second 45 and were causing serious headaches at times.

However, Conn weren’t to be denied on the hour mark, when Aine McClean’s through ball set up a footrace between Natasha Garrett and Bright. The midfielder outran the Town net-minder to get a toe to it and level proceedings.

The game opened up near the end, and it looked for all the world like one side would get that all-important winner as defensive legs tired.

However, it wasn’t to be, and both sides walked away pining for what could’ve been a euphoric win to kick-start the Bank Holiday weekend.

A full report, plus reaction from both sides, will be included in Tuesday’s edition of The Mayo News.