Early 2nd Half Goals end MacLarnon for St Ciarán’s
Danske Bank MacLarnon Cup Quarter Final
From Kevin Kelly in the Loup
St Columb’s Derry 3-10 St Ciaran’s Ballygawley 0-8
A scoring burst in the opening three minutes of the second half that saw them hit 2-2 without reply laid the foundations for St Columb’s Derry’s MacLarnon Cup quarter final victory over St Ciaran’s Ballygawley at Loup yesterday afternoon.
The Derry lads had led 0-4 to 0-1 at the end of a low scoring first half that saw St Ciaran’s kick five wides as well as drop the ball short on a few occasions. Within sixty seconds of the restart Sean Bradley had cut in from the right to smash the ball home and after Eoin McElhinney had added a brace of points Sean Mortimer found the net as well.
To their credit the Tyrone lads kept battling away with the lively Darragh Canavan converting a couple of frees while the switching of Conor Shields from defence to attack gave them a focal point up front, he weighed in with three scores.
St.Columb’s though had a vice like grip on proceedings which they were never going to loosen with Andy Moore, Caolan O’Connor and McElhinney tagging on points before Conor Feeney put the icing on the cake with a late goal.
Feeney and Moore had supplied first half points for the winners with St.Ciaran’s sole response coming in injury time with a superb individual effort from corner forward Canavan.
On the day the winners were best served by Ross Stevenson, Eoin Coll, Keelan Smyth, Feeney, McElhinney, Mortimer and Moore while on the day St Ciaran’s best players were Conor Quinn, Shields and Canavan.
St Columb’s scorers – C Feeney 1-3, E McElhinney 0-3, A Moore 0-3, S Bradley 1-0, S Mortimer 1-0, C O’Connor 0-1
St Ciaran’s scorers – D Canavan 0-3, C Shields 0-3, D Blake 0-1, T Hoy 0-1
