Westmeath Senior Football Championship: Mullingar Shamrocks 1-14 Athlone 1-12.

It was mission accomplished in Hogan Park, Moate on Wednesday evening as Mullingar Shamrocks with some great spirited play in the final twenty minutes secured the valuable championship points against Athlone winning on a 1-14 to 1-12 scoreline. A good start in supposed to be half the battle but Shamrocks playing the help of a strong wind got off to the worst possible start conceding a goal after just three minutes play. Memories of last season were recalled when a high ball into the Shamrocks goalmouth was collected by Josh Beaumont who turned and shot but his effort was superbly blocked by Eddie Moore on the goal line. Beaumont's follow-up effort was scrambled clear by a combination of Eddie and Philly Shaw. But the umpires thought differently and raised the green flag. Waterford people present had flashbacks to last year's Munster championship match with Tipperary. Shamrocks recovered and points from Dean Moore, Simon Quinn, Darren Keena and Denis Corroon steadied matters. These scores were followed by a well created Shamrocks goal. Daragh Daly was the architect in chief with a good run through the Athlone defence that ended with a pass to Simon Quinn who swiftly transferred to Dean Moore who with the predator's instinct slid the ball under Paul Bannon for the key Shamrocks' score. The Shamrocks' half-back line was playing superbly at this stage and limited the supply to an Athlone full-forward line that threatened danger. Shamrocks pushed on, Denis Corroon added to his total so too did Dean Moore and at the interval Shamrocks led by four points (1-9 to 1-5). The lead was wiped out within ten minutes of the restart. Benny Martin opened the scoring with a great strike from a distance, John Stapleton sent a couple of balls over the bar from around 45 or 50 metres out but Denis Corroon interrupted this sequence of scores with another excellent point from play, Athlone added two more points and were level by the fortieth minute (1-10 each). In the final twenty minutes Shamrocks proved their resilience and despite the wind disadvantage outscored Athlone 0-4 to 0-2 and points from Trevor Keena, Dillon Matthews and Daragh Daly wrapped up the win. Three of our young players Marc Eivers, Trevor Keena and Dylan Matthews were prominent at this stage and the points from Keena and Matthews proved crucial in securing the win. A close-range point from Fergal Murray, that was really a goal scoring opportunity created some unease for Shamrocks as the deficit was reduced to the minimum with four minutes left on the clock. Shamrocks retained possession for the bulk of the remaining time and crucially Daragh Daly took possession, drove at goal, beat his marker and punched the final score of the evening.

Mullingar Shamrocks: Philip Shaw; Eddie Moore, Efe Siode, Aaron Purcell (Dillon Matthews, 0-1); Killian Daly, Michael Curley, Brendan Reilly (Mark Butler), Daragh Daly (0-1), Donal O’Donoghue; Darren Keena (0-1) [Paddy Joyce], Denis Corroon (0-5), Billy Flynn (Marc Eivers); Simon Quinn (0-1) (Pearse Corroon), Dean Moore (1-3), David Gavin (0-1) [Trevor Keena 0-1].