Senior Football Championship: Mullingar Shamrocks 1-13 Maryland 2-7

It wasn't pretty and it wasn't impressive but it was a victory and that is really all that matters at this stage. We are now in an knock-out championship situation; our two remaining opponents, St Mary's, Rochfortbridge are in a similar position and from now on it is a winner takes all situation.

Shamrocks began in sprightly fashion and Brendan O'Reilly and Dean Moore had points in the opening minutes. Maryland were in no mood to roll over however and by the sixth minute had levelled matters. Paddy Joyce pointed after a great run but Kenny Kincaid netted to confirm the Maryland intentions of taking the game to Shamrocks. Ross Corroon making his  championship debut saved well initially but could do nothing about the rebound.  A Simon Quinn flick from a Denis Corroon free was brilliantly saved by Liam Moran; the subsequent 45 from Ross Corroon fell short. Paddy Joyce added another point as the Shamrocks defence was repeatedly stretched by Maryland who added two more points to bring their tally to 1-4 at the interval. In that time, Simon Quinn, Patrick Fagan and Dean Moore had points for Shamrocks to level matters (1-4 to 0-7).

Shamrocks added four points in the opening six minutes of the second half. Dean Moore had two and Alan Cashman and Darren Keena one each with Patrick Fagan supplying the passes for two of these efforts. At this stage, Killian Daly (black card ) and Efe Siode (red card) departed the scene but Shamrocks continued to dominate despite being a man short. Ciarán Curley was introduced as a substitute and with his first touch finished to the Maryland net to put Shamrocks 0-6 ahead (1-11 to 1-5) Denis Corroon and Kieran Martin exchanged points; Martin's effort sparked a Maryland revival that was ignited further by a punched Darren Maylinn goal (1-12 to 2-6). Martin pointed again and Shamrocks were in some difficulty. A great Ciarán Curley point provided some relief before referee Jim Rock blew the final whistle. 

The championship points secured on this occasion owed much to the great work on the night by a superb performance by Dónal O'Donoghue with great support from Micheál Curley, Brendan O'Reilly, Dean Moore and an important contribution on the scoreboard from  Ciarán Curley during his brief appearance as well as some crucial  emergency defending by Aaron Purcell and Eddie Moore.

Mullingar Shamrocks: Ross Corroon; Eddie Moore, Kieran Gavin, Aaron Purcell; Paddy Joyce (0-2) [Efe Siode], Killian Daly (Mark Butler), Micheál Curley; Denis Corroon (0-1), Patrick Fagan (0-1) [Ciarán Curley, 1-1]; Brendan O'Reilly (0-1), Dónal O'Donoghue, Alan Cashman (0-1) [Dillon Matthews]; Darren Keena (0-1) [Pearse Corroon], Dean Moore (0-4) and Simon Quinn (0-1).