Minor Football League: Mullingar Shamrocks 3-13 Multyfarnham 2-9.

Mullingar Shamrocks minor footballers had their second outing within four days on St Patrick’s Day when they played Multyfarnham in the County Minor football league at Springfield. Clearly benefitting from the earlier match against Shannon Gaels, Shamrocks were deserving winners (3-13 to 2-9).  Although D. J. Fedronas was absent on inter-county duty the inclusion of Sean O’Brien gave the team a considerable boost. In the early minutes, Cormac Hynes and Kenneth O’Reilly did what their fathers often did a generation ago: they opened the scoring for Shamrocks with a point each. Multyfarnham responded in like manner on each occasion and a second point by Kenneth O’Reilly was also balanced by a similar Multyfarnham score. The next ten minutes proved decisive from a Shamrocks perspective. Sean O’Brien muscled his way through the Multyfarnham defence for a fine point, a sliced pass from Sam Gilmartin found Kenneth O’Reilly and he blasted a superb shot to the Multyfarnham net, Sean O’Brien fielded the resulting kick-out and completed the skill set by kicking a superb long-range point, Ross Corroon added two more points and the scoring run was completed by Cormac Hynes with a left-footed effort that just cleared the crossbar. This was good enough to send Shamrocks to the dressing rooms with an interval lead of 1-8 to 0-5.

It was Cathal Crowley’s turn to lead the way  in the early stages of the second-half. Having what might well have been his best game in a Shamrocks jersey he contributed 1-1 to his team’s total. The goal was set up by a fine piece of combination play that ended with Kenneth O’Reilly releasing Crowley who finished with some style. Shamrocks next scores came from two great pointed long-range frees. The first came from Ross Corroon from close to the side-line on the right-hand side of the pitch; the second on the opposite side came from the boot of Sean O’Brien who hit the ball a ferocious thump that sent it sailing into the wind and well over the bar for what was the best point of the day.  Multyfarnham forwards led by Alan Loughrey were also busy and after twenty minutes just six points separated the sides.  However a third Shamrocks goal scored by Sean Wylie secured the victory; points by Kenneth O’Reilly and Mark Eivers brought the Shamrocks tally to 3-13 at the final whistle.

Mullingar Shamrocks: Killian White; Daragh White, Cormac Murphy, Conor McKenna; Andrew Connaughton, Christy Fox (Cormac Darby), Mark Eivers (0-1); Sam Gilmartin and Sean O’Brien (0-3);  Cormac Hynes (0-2) [Gavin Flanagan],  Ross Corroon (0 -3), Matthew Willoughby (Seán Wylie 1-0), Kenneth O’Reilly (1-3), Corey Coyne (Matthew Maslin) and Cathal Crowley (1-1).