Ciaran Kilduff was introduced to the home crowd sooner than he thought as Jacksonville Armada brought him on 30 minutes into their 1-0 loss against Miami FC at The Hodges Stadium on Sunday night.

Kilduff replaced the injured Tony Taylor in what turned out to be tough debut against the NASL Spring Season Champions.

Despite his sides extensive efforts including thirteen shots with four on goal, the Armada FC lost out and remain bottom of the table. 

Although they were unable to collect any points on Kilduff’s debut, head coach Mark Lowry remains positive.

“We dominated. That performance was superb against the best team in the league. It shows how good we are,” said Lowry. “That performance was almost perfect, we just lacked two or three goals. We keep doing that and we’ll start winning games.”

In the middle of the first half, Ciarán Kilduff made his first appearance for the Armada FC– just two days after arriving in Jacksonville. Tony Taylor went to the ground with an injury and Kilduff replaced him in the 30th minute.

“Losing Tony really hurt us [because] he was looking good and sharp around the box. I’m pretty sure he would have scored tonight,” said Lowry. “Unfortunately we lost Tony earlier than we wanted to.”

Kilduff had a chance after his new team mate Rebellón dribbled the ball past multiple defenders before cutting the ball to the Kilcock man whose shot went just left of the goal.

Despite the best efforts of Kilduff and Armada FC, Jacksonville could not find the net to equalize the, meaning Miami FC took all three points at Hodges Stadium.

Next the Armada FC will hit the road, as they travel to face Indy Eleven. Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Indianapolis. The team will return home on Saturday, Sept. 9 for First Responders Night at Hodges Stadium.

 STARTING XI:

JAX (4-2-3-1): Patterson-Sewell, Ryden, Pitchkolan, Jerome, Rebellón, George (Johnson 82’), Blake, Banks, Shriver, Steinberger (Gebhard 65’), Taylor (Kilduff 29’)

MIA (4-3-2-1): Vega, Smith, Palmer, Bernstein, Borrajo, Rezende (Mares 60’), Ryan, Lahoud, Martinez (Freeman 74’), Chávez, Poku

ATTENDANCE: 

1,186