MJS Builds Under-16 Football County Div. 2 Final: St Loman’s 2-17 Mullingar Shamrocks 0-9.

No doubt about this result as the better and physically stronger St. Loman’s team cruised to victory after leading from start to finish. 

St Loman’s converted their initial possession won at the throw-in to a point when their captain and best player Sean O’Brien pointed. The Shamrocks response was immediate and from the restart, the ball was worked downfield for Ruairi Kilmartin to point. 

Unfortunately, this score-for-score response was not to continue and we had to wait another 18 minutes for Shamrocks next score – a well-struck point from Ryan McNamee. In between St Loman’s scored 2-8, with seven players getting in on the scoring act. Shamrocks main difficulty came from an inability to win possession from their own restarts, which was crucifying. M. J. Long, Jamie McDonnell, Shane Windsor, pointed before a long range shot from Conor Maleady dropped into the net.  Darragh O’Riordan pointed a move that began with a brilliant cross-field pass by Sean Byrne; Cian Matthews pointed again from a Shamrocks restart, as did Sean Byrne before Cian Matthews  added two points and when his shot for goal was dropped by Szymon, Cormac Murphy availed of the opportunity to score St Loman’s second goal.  Cian Matthews neutralized Ryan’s effort.  Ted Aherne pointed a free, Hugo Corroon pointed from play before Jack Connaughton completed St Loman’s first half total to bring the interval score to 2-11 to 0-4. 

The scoring trend was more balanced in the second half from the Shamrocks perspective as they added 0-5 to their total with Hugo Corroon, Ted Aherne (0-2 from frees), Rory McCaul and Seán Hickey getting the scores, the last two were particularly fine efforts. Szymon Kasprzak pulled off a great save to deprive Cormac Murphy of his second goal.  Jack Connaughton, Cian Matthews (0-2), Óisin Scally and Cormac Murphy completed the St Loman’s total. 

Not the best end of season for the boys but they can take satisfaction at their improvement over the course of the year during which they had a number of great victories especially the extra-time defeat of Killucan in an earlier round and the defeat of Moate All-Whites in the semi-final of this competition. 

Thanks to Seamus Wallace, Oliver Keating, Barry Maguire, Derek Sheeran and Adrian Regan for their great work with the lads since last February and to the boys’ parents for carrying out all the jobs that parents have to do when their sons are involved in under-age sport. The best is yet to come.

Mullingar Shamrocks: Szymon Kasprzak; Harry Tilson (Padraig Regan), Liam Heffernan, Zak Coyne; Rian Sheeran (Luke Kelly), Seán Hickey (0-1), James Ryan; Rory McCaul (0-1), Ted Aherne (0-3); Darragh Ryan (Óisin Scally ), Óisin Gavin James Davitt (Gareth Sweeney); Ruairi Kilmartin (0-1), Hugo Corroon (0-1), Ryan McNamee (0-2) [Charlie Murtagh]. Other panelists: Ruairi Kelly, Dylan Byrne.