Mullingar Shamrocks

Founded 1953

Co. Westmeath

Minor Footballers withstand Caulry Comeback

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Radisson Blu Minor Football Championship: Mullingar Shamrocks 3-11 Caulry 2-12

Mullingar Shamrocks minor team landed their finest victory of the year with this 0-2 victory over Caulry in a superb game of football in Springfield. Shamrocks began well and had 0-5 on the scoreboard courtesy of Matthew Maslin (0-3), Cormac Hynes and John O’Reilly within ten minutes. Caulry’s response was balanced by another like score from Matthew Maslin A great Seán Óg Hynes save prevented a certain Caulry goal. This was the first of many great saves made by Seán Óg on the night in a display which was instrumental in securing the Shamrocks victory. Trevor Keena landed a great point from long range as Mullingar Shamrocks established an 0-7 to 0-4 lead. A Caulry point reduced the deficit.

Shamrocks next three scores were of the major variety. A big man on the edge of the square is always a danger and in the fifteenth minute Pádraig McKenna was the one lurking with intent and he got the vital touch to score Shamrocks first goal. McKenna turned creator in the next Shamrocks attack with a great solo run along the end line and his pass across the goalmouth gave John O’Reilly the simplest of tasks to knock the ball to the Caulry net. The third goal was scored by Dillon Matthews after a characteristic solo run and spectacular finish. The foundation for this score was created with some superb tackling by Marc Eivers who offloaded to Jack Kelly who in turn found John O’Reilly who passed to Matthews after a short solo run.  Caulry had the final two scores  before Mick Dillon, an excellent referee,  ended the first half with Shamrocks leading by 3-7 to 0-7. 

A notable feature of this half was the exceptional tackling by the Shamrocks players in particular in which all six back excelled (a few interventions by Matthew Siode and Marc Eivers were particularly notewrthy), and the number of marks made by players from both teams, a reflection of their fielding ability and the quality of restarts by both goalkeepers.

In the second half, Mullingar Shamrocks were outscored 2-5 to 0-4 by the men from Caulry; in the opening ten minutes both sides shared 0-3 with the Shamrocks points coming from Trevor Keena (following great work by Dillon Matthews), Adam McCormack and Keena again (3-10 to 0-10). A great Seán Óg Hynes save was judged to have been a foot-block and Adam Donoghue slotted home the resultant penalty.  At this stage Shamrocks lost both their mid-fielders when Dillon Matthews was black carded and Trevor Keena retired injured. A Zak Dolan goal and two more Caulry points reduced the deficit to the minimum (3-10 to 2-12) and Shamrocks were on the ropes.  However, there was no panic and a few excellent phases of ball retention proved vital as well as a fine Seán Óg Hynes finger-tip save. One of these phases ended with Rory O’Sullivan Sexton bursting through on goal. The inevitable foul followed and Matthew Maslin popped over the free to finish the scoring for the evening.

A great team victory and the finest achieved by this panel of players who now play KIlbeggan in their final match of the group.

 Mullingar Shamrocks: Sean Óg Hynes; Mark Flynn, Brian Reidy, Matthew Siode, Cormac Darby, Marc Eivers, Jack Kelly, Dillon Matthews [1-0] (William Adzangoa) and Trevor Keena [0-3] (Rory O’Sullivan Sexton); Adam McCormack (0-1), Cormac Hynes (0-1),  John O’Reilly [1-1] (Brandon Heffernan); Matthew Maslin (0-5), Jack Gillen (Zac Aherne), Pádraig McKenna (1-0).

 

 

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