The 2017 League campaign started on a beautiful Saturday evening at Robert McCallion Memorial Park with the visit of Shrule Glencorrib.
The visitors having been relegated last year were looking to bounce straight back up while the young Swinford team were looking to get the season off to the best start.
The visitors started much the stronger and after 25 minutes were 6 points to no score up. They were playing with the benefit of a good wind and should probably have been further ahead. Both teams had a number of poor wides in that spell.
It was 25 minutes before Swinford opened their account with a point from Jason McLoughlin. This rallied the team and they scored another four before the break with three from Liam Moran and another from Jason McLoughlin.
Having been out of the game for the vast majority of the first half Swinford only found themselves one point down at the break.
Shrule found their scoring boots again early in the second half and scored two points to put the gap at three. James Devaney pulled one back but this was wiped soon wiped out by another Shrule point.
Liam Moran rattled off two points to bring the game back to the minimum but Shrule scored their tenth point. Again Liam pulled one back so with roughly 12 minutes left the game was on a knife edge with the visitors leading by one.
Swinford had a number of chances to level the game but all went wide. In addition there was instances missed by the officials of pick ups and throws in inside the visitors defence that went unpunished.
As much as they tried Swinford could not get that equaliser and in the last few minutes Shrule rattled off some nice points to win by four. Full time score was Swinford 0-9 Shrule Glencorrib 0-13
For a long period of the first half Swinford were not in the game and they will have to get that out of their system if they wish to progress. Saying that when they were in the game they were excellent and save for some poor options up front and some poor decisions from the official the game was there to be won.
Next game is away to Castlebar Mitchells B next weekend.
Swinford: Sean Kavanagh, Aiden McLoughlin, Sean Brady, James Lavin, Mark McNicholas, Kevin Barry, Joshua Smith, Mark Forkan, Michael Walsh, Kevin McDonagh, Johnny Burke, Liam Moran, James Sweeney, Jason McLoughlin, James Devaney. Subs Darren Campbell, Joe Kelly
Scorers: Liam Moran 0-6, Jason McLoughlin 0-2, James Devaney 0-1
