Armagh City 3 Sport and Leisure Swifts 0
Armagh City ran out comfortable 3-0 winners against a brave Sport and Leisure Swifts side at Holm Park on Saturday to extend their unbeaten home run to 21 matches.
At the same time, they moved into joint second spot in Championship Two and closed the gap on leaders PSNI.
It was a frustrating opening half for City, who created plenty of chances but failed to tuck them away.
Striker Steven Murray had three glorious scoring opportunities in the opening half-hour but all went abegging.
In the 34th minute, Armagh left wing-back Ryan McGerrigan unleashed a superb 30-yard effort, but Swifts ‘keeper Damien Nugent did brilliantly to push the thunderbolt wide.
City’s Matthew Hynds looked certain to find the net just before the break but a last ditch tackle from winger John Donnan managed to keep the game scoreless at the break.
It was a similar pattern of play after the interval, with Armagh pushing forward at every opportunity, only to be thwarted by their opposition.
However, in the 52nd minute, City did break down the determined Swifts when interplay between Murray and Gavin McParland set up midfielder Hynds, who drilled a low 12-yard effort into the corner of the net past the despairing Nugent.
Armagh continued to rack up the chances and during the second period, centre-back Dara Noonan sent three decisive headers well wide.
Despite this, the home side wrapped up the match in the 70th minute when Murray finally found the net with a low 15-yard shot which again gave Nugent no chance.
Swifts tried to rally and Pat McDonnell sent in a rasping 30-yard effort which was superbly pushed over the crossbar by alert City stopper Sean Morgan.
With six minutes remaining, Armagh made their dominance tell with a third score from Murray which was tucked home from close range following a goalmouth melee.
