No stopping Dollingstown in Intermediate cup tie

This time they saw off the challenge of 18th Newtownabbey in the Intermediate Cup by a handsome 5-0 margin away from home.

The only sour note was the sending off of Andy Hamilton after 15 minutes. He will miss the league game with Bourneview on Saturday but is also sweating on being available for the Boxing Day Bob Radcliffe Cup final.

Richard Thompson opened the scoring on two minutes and soon after Chris Mackle doubled the lead. Then came the Hamilton sending off for a second bookable offence.

It remained 2-0 at the break but Dollingstown took command again in the second half to win at a canter with further goals from Thompson, Jake Redpath and Neil Clydesdale.

Manager Gary Duke was delighted with the efforts. “Another good performance with only the red card for Andy Hamilton marring what was otherwise a good afternoon,” said Duke.

“It was a very harsh decision but the result takes a key player out of contention this week.

“I have been fortunate to be able to change the team around for the past few weeks giving players coming back from injury some game time and it has all gone according to plan. We made a solid start in this game and although they came back at us a bit we never really looked in any trouble.

“Things are going very well at the minute. We have only lost two games and have reached two cup finals which we can now focus on over the Christmas period. I am very happy with where we are right now but the job is all about keeping that going.”

Dollingstown: Kris Fletcher, Jake Redpath, Chris Mackle, Jim Girvan, Neil King, Aaron Moffett, Duncan Stoddard, Andy Hamilton, Jordan Gibson, Dale Malone, Richard Thompson. Subs: Neil Clydesdale, Adam Walker, Jonny McAdam and Mark Savage.