No joy for our senior footballers last weekend with their East v West battle against Ilen Rovers in the championship relegation playoff. Rovers had the breeze in the 1st half and quickly got on the scoreboard with 2 points in the opening 2 minutes. Aghada needed to settle and did so on 5 minutes when Charlie Terry put Pearse through on goal and Pearse made no mistake with a good left foot finish to the back of the net. 2 minutes later Ilen were level again with their 2nd point from play. It was end to end stuff for the next 10 minutes. Aghada had 2 points from corner forward Aaron Berry and 2 from good runs from defence in the shape of Jake O’Donoghue and Mattie O’Connor. Ilen Rovers had 3 scores in this period, but significantly one was a well taken goal on 14 minutes. The other 2 were points from play, one of which came after they had hit the crossbar with a penalty. On 20 minutes Ilen hit another point to make the score 1-6 v 1-4 in their favour, and now they got the upper hand somewhat. A point on 21 minutes could easily have been a goal, but for a good save from Andy O’Donoghue. 2 more points from placed balls followed, with O’Neill replying with a like score after Cian Fleming was fouled. Fleming did have a great chance for a goal on 29 minutes, but his flick towards goal didn’t quite come off. The sides exchanged a point each before the short whistle, O’Connor getting his second after good play from Josh O’Shea. So 1-10 v 1-6 was the score at the interval. On resumption, it was again tit for tat on the scoreboard, with 2 O’Neill frees for Aghada cancelling out 2 more points from Rovers. Halftime substitute Ronan Kennedy played a part in earning both of the Aghada frees. When Tim Hartnett was fouled going through on 13 minutes, Fleming converted the free to make it a 3 point game. Ilen pointed from play 2 minutes later, but a super pass from Berry to the inrushing Pearse O’Neill led to his 5th score and just a goal between the sides again. Aghada needed to kick on at this point but instead it was Ilen Rovers who got on top in proceedings, thanks to 3 unanswered pointed frees from the 20th to 23rd minutes. In truth some were very harsh decisions, but now the game was slipping away from Aghada. Josh O’Shea pointed on 25 minutes to reduce the gap to 5 points, but in truth, Aghada never looked like making any significant inroads into the deficit. On 30 minutes, a fine passing move saw Ilen score their 2nd goal to make doubly sure of the result. Aghada kept going right to the end, Shane Bennet firing just wide with a goal chance on 33 minutes, but at the final whistle, Ilen Rovers were deserving winners. Aghada have one last chance to avoid dropping into the bottom two for this year when they now face Newcestown this Friday night coming. Aghada Team and scorers - Andy O’Donoghue, Jake O’Donoghue (0-1), Michael Russell, Kaelan O’Donoghue, Conor O’Driscoll, Josh O’Shea(0-1), Mathew O’Connor (0-2), Tom O’Neill, Marcus Leahy, Tim Hartnett, Pearse O’Neill(1-4,0-3f), Charlie Terry, Aaron Berry(0-2), Ray Savage, Cian Fleming(0-1, 1f). Subs Used – Ronan Kennedy, Jordan Tynan, Kevin O’Hanlon, David Rice, Aiden O’Connell, Shane Bennett.