Sligo hurlers suffered their second successive National League Division 3B defeat against Fingal in last Sunday afternoon’s encounter in Markievicz Park.

Sligo were missing anumber of key players and inparticular the influence ofKeith Raymond their talismanand scorer in chief over thelast few years.

Sligo took the lead in thefirst minute through a ColinHerrity free but that was theonly time in the game thatthey were to be in front. Fingallevelled the match with theirfirst point in their first attackof note after 8 minutes andthen took the lead in the 13thminute with their second freefrom centre half forwardMartin Ormonde, who sentover a long distance effortfrom the right hand touch line.

Both centre forwards tradedscores from frees as chancesfrom open play were few andfar between. A Herrity freeafter 18 minutes brought thesides level again before LiamReidy conceded a free justinside the Fingal half and hispersistent challenging of thereferee’s decision brought thefree to inside the Sligo halfwhere Ormonde made nomistake to give his side a 0 – 3to 0 -2 lead after 20 minutes.

Herrity brought the sideslevel at 0 – 3 apiece withanother free in the 29thminute, before Fingal halfforward Paul McAllisterscored only the second pointfrom play in the 35th minute togive his side the lead again.Herrity and Ormonde scored apoint each, again from frees toleave Sligo trailing by thenarrowest of margins by 0 – 4to 0 -5 at the interval.

As in the first half, Sligo hadthe best of the early fewexchanges following the throwin, and Colin Herrity levelledthe game with another pointfrom over 50 meters out on theright hand touch line after 38minutes, but straight from thepuck out Fingal took the leadagain with a good point byColm Foley.

Fingals’s centre-forwardMartin Ormonde was showinghis prowess from the placedball however and two morefrees from Ormonde and apoint apiece by PaulMcAllister and EmmettMcCabe gave Fingal a 0 – 10 to0 – 5 lead after 48 minutes.

Sligo finally got their firstscore from play in the 50thminute with a an excellentturn and shot by Mark Gordonfrom 35 meters out on the righthand touch line. AnotherHerrity free, moments later,reduced the deficit to 3 pointsin the 54th minute. AnotherHerrity free in the 57th minuteleft the score at 0 – 8 to 0 -10 infavour of Fingal but the gamehung in the balance withneither side looking like theycould make a noteworthyeffort that would ensurevictory. A point for Fingalscored by Emmet McCabe anda fine individual score by JoeBannerton left the score at 0 –9 to 0 – 11 with less than tenminutes remaining in thegame.

Then came the decisivescore of the game when DaraDe Burca capitalised onhesitancy in the sligo defenceto finish to the net. The goalproved to be a killer blow forSligo and gave Fingal a lead of1 – 11 to 0 – 9 with timerunning out in the game.

AHerrity free reduced the deficitto 4 points but once againOrmonde scored another freefrom distance to give his side a5 point lead again. That wasSligo’s final score of the gameand they never looked likereducing the deficit as Fingaladded a further 4 points in theclosing minutes

Sligo: M Kearney, J Kelly, WGill, J Kenny; M Gilmartin, MBurke, R Cox, L Reidy, CBrennan, V O’Hora, C Herrity(0-8), D Burke, M Gordon (0-1),C O’Mahoney, J Bannerton (0-1). Subs: D O’Brien, N Cadden,A Cawley