Senior Football Championship: Mullingar Shamrocks 1-17 Castledaly 0-8.

The setting was beautiful, the weather was beautiful and while Mullingar Shamrocks might not have played the beautiful game there was absolutely no resemblance between this display and the tepid performance against The Downs in the opening championship game. Shamrocks continued the good form shown in recent league matches and the return of 1-17 against the terrier-like tackling of Castledaly was a great return in championship football. Two brilliant saves by the Castledaly goalkeeper kept the Shamrocks goal tally to the minimum. The level of accuracy displayed by Shamrocks is worthy of note as only a single wide was recorded to this stage. The second-half wasn’t bad either with only five wides recorded.   

Seanie Daly’s opening point from a difficult free was followed by two Castledaly points.  Daly equalised in the tenth minute with another pointed free that was a carbon-copy of his opening effort. In between these scores a brilliant run by Daragh Daly from mid-field ended with a superb save by the Castledaly goalkeeper. Shamrocks added six unanswered points with half-backs Kieran Gavin and Killian Daly scoring 0-1 each, Denis Corroon added 0-2 and two players who worked really hard throughout the game, Patrick Fagan and Brian Melody were rewarded for their hard work by knocking over 0-1 each. The latter had his finest game in a Shamrocks senior championship match. Castledaly scored 0-2 before half-time to leave the score at 0-8 to 0-2 at the interval.      Immediately after the break, Patrick Fagan raced through the Castledaly defence but was foiled by another fine save by the  goalkeeper. Dylan McDermott pointed and Patrick Fagan added a beauty of a point before Denis Corroon scored three points in succession. The first was possibly the point of the evening and was created by a brilliant piece of fielding by Effie and a superb forty-yard pass to Denis who also fielded superbly, broke the tackle and kicked one of his outside-of-the-boot specials. This one sailed between the posts. A great Patrick Fagan run ended with a goal to extend Shamrocks lead to 1-13 to 0-6 and guarantee the championship points. Seanie Daly finished his hard-working mid-field stint with two more pointed frees, Dylan McDermott scored another and then came the individual score of the match when Effie soloed out of defence with only one purpose in mind. A solo run up the left side of the pitch was ended with a left-footed shot that split the posts and was a fitting conclusion to a fine individual performance by the Shamrocks full-back. If Effie ever decides to take this game really seriously, a long career in the Westmeath jersey is guaranteed.

This was essentially a team victory laced with some outstanding individual performances; apart from those already mentioned, Billy Flynn who was everywhere and wingbacks Micheál Curley and Killian Daly had great games. It was also a crucial victory that reignited our championship campaign and with Maryland beating The Downs and Killucan beating Garrycastle, the campaign ahead has become a total dogfight with four teams on two points and Killucan with  four.

Shamrocks: Philly Shaw; Davy Coyne, Effie Siode (0-1), Aaron Purcell; Micheál Curley, Kieran Gavin (0-1), Killian Daly (0-1); Seanie Daly (0-4) and Daragh Daly; Billy Flynn, Denis Corroon (0-5), Patrick Fagan (1-2); Brian Melody (0-1), Dylan McDermott (0-2), Ciarán Curley (Conor Moore).