Niamh Reel kicked five points as Armagh held off a late Dublin surge in the Lidl national league division one.
Seeking to build on victories against Kerry and Tyrone in the opening two rounds of the NFL. Armagh established an early two-point lead courtesy of consecutive efforts from corner-forwards Reel and Maeve Lennon.
Despite creating a number of scoring opportunities, Dublin initially struggled to create attacking momentum. The Orchard County outfit doubled their cushion when Aoife McCoy and Reel (free) found the target either side of the first-quarter mark.
The sin-binning of corner-back Jess Tobin also left Dublin with a temporary numerical disadvantage. However, the hosts impressively overcame this set-back by wiping out Armagh’s four-point buffer in lightning quick time.
After Kate Sullivan got Dublin up and running with a superb goal on 18 minutes, Chloe Darby immediately followed up with a pointed free to bring her side on level terms.
While Armagh settled back into the contest with successive scores by midfielder Niamh Coleman and the dependable Reel, another successful free – this time from captain Carla Rowe – left Dublin a single point adrift at 0-6 to 1-2 at the interval.
Yet the Orchard women got the ball rolling on the resumption with Reel’s fourth of the afternoon.
The Ulster side created further daylight with points from the evergreen Caroline O’Hanlon (free), substitute Caoimhe McNally and Niamh Henderson.
Dublin finally opened their second-half account with a place-ball effort from Jodi Egan on 48 minutes. While Reel registered a similar score at the opposite end of the pitch, Niamh Hetherton also raised a white flag to keep the home side in contention during the closing stages of the action.
The deficit was reduced to the bare minimum when Hetherton found the net at the second time of asking on 57 minutes.
However, Armagh ultimately dug deep in a tense finale to come away with the three points on offer.
Armagh: A Carr; M Ferguson, C Garvey (G Ferguson 44), C Towe; E Druse, L McConville, R Mulligan; N Coleman, C O’Hanlon; A McCoy, M Feehan (E Lavery 47), B Mackin (E McGeown 53); N Reel (R Cunningham 57), N Henderson, M Lennon (C McNally 39).
Scorers: N Reel 0-5 (4f), C O’Hanlon 0-1 (1f), N Coleman, A McCoy, N Henderson, M Lennon, C McNally 0-1 each.
Dublin: A Shiels; J Tobin, L Caffrey, A Nyhan; H McGinnis, M Byrne, A Curran; G Kos, N Hetherton; K Sullivan, C Darby (J Egan 46), K Murray (R McDonnell HT); A Timothy (S McIntyre 41), C Rowe, N Donlon.
Scorers: N Hetherton 1-1, K Sullivan 1-0, C Darby 0-1 (f), C Rowe 0-1 (f), J Egan 0-1 (f).
Referee: Gus Chapman (Sligo).
