Irish League: Philip Donnelly hits late equaliser for Warrenpoint against Newry

His goal cancelled out James Walker’s second half penalty for the hosts in a tight affair that was low on quality.

The Point had a great chance to break the deadlock midway through the half when Fra McCaffrey held off Walker 25 yards to go through one-on-one with Coleman.

However, he opted to shoot early when he had much more time and his sidefoot effort was straight at the Newry keeper, who saved easily.

A super run in from the left by Stephen Hughes then saw him hold off two challenges before letting fly from 20 yards. His shot took a huge deflection that had McCarey scrambling to his right only for the ball to bounce just wide and out for a corner.

Newry went in front three minutes into the second half from the penalty spot.

Mark McCabe was bundled over in the box by Danny Wallace and Walker stepped up to send McCarey the wrong way from 12 yards to put Newry 1-0 ahead.

They almost doubled that advantage on the hour mark when a diagonal ball found Mark Hughes in space on the left hand side of the box, but his volley clipped the outside of the post from a tight angle.

Dale Montgomery put his free header from Walker’s corner wide on 63 before Carville blocked Marc Griffin’s goalbound shot at the other end.

Then each side had two huge chances within 60 seconds of each other.

Firstly, Newry’s Kevin McArdle played a clever one-two down the right before cutting into the box only to drag his left-foot shot wide with only McCarey to beat on 69 minutes.

Then Warrenpoint sub Ciaran O’Connor managed to get something on a looping ball into the Newry area that saw Coleman produce an excellent reaction save to keep it out.

The game was beginning to open up as it headed towards the final 15 minutes and only a superb diving block from McCaffrey deflected Stephen Hughes’ 15-yard drive from making it 2-0 with a quarter of an hour remaining.

In the final minute of normal time, Warrenpoint thought they had levelled when Maxim Kouogun headed goalwards, but the ball dropped just wide.

However, a minute into stoppage time they did get back on terms when Donnelly forced the ball past Coleman.

Newry City AFC: Coleman, Montgomery, King (McCaul 13), Mooney (McArdle H-T), Boyle, McCann, Walker, S Hughes, Carville, McCabe, M Hughes

Subs not used: Maguire, Lavery, Rushe, Delaney, Teggart

Warrenpoint Town: McCarey, Moan (Watters 73), Hughes, Wallace, Kougoun, Kelly, Norton (O’Connor 62), McCaffrey, Scannell, O’Sullivan (Donnelly 72), Griffin

Subs not used: Turker, J Lynch, M Lynch, McGrandles

Refere: Lee Tavinder