Shay Murtagh Precast Senior Championship: Mullingar Shamrocks 2-11 St Loman’s 1-14.
Driving out of Owenbeg after the Féile last month Andy Moran was doing an interview on RTE radio with Marty Morrissey. “When you have 7or 8 young players making their championship debut you’ll have good days and bad days”, Andy claimed. We immediately thought of Mullingar Shamrocks but dismissed Andy’s claim. Well we know what happened since.
On TEG Cusack Park on Sunday evening we saw that you can have good and bad match spells also. We trailed by 1-9 to 0-6 at the interval and drifted out to 1-11 to 0-6 early in the second half before staging a brilliant recovery with youth to the fore and can consider ourselves unlucky not to collect both championship points.
T. J. Cox opened the scoring for St Loman’s following a first minute turnover but Dean Moore responded with a fine point, off the left boot, from a difficult free. Dean collected the restart and skipped by a few Loman’s defenders and kicked the lead point for Shamrocks. Sam McCartan kicked the levelling point and John Heslin from an advanced mark edged St Loman’s ahead. At this stage Adam Glynn was seen to good effect with a number of fine tackles and interceptions. Ty Masterson was also impressing with his advances into Loman’s territory. Kevin Regan pointed and Shane Dempsey collected the restart and added the fifth point to Loman’s total. Jack Geoghegan kicked a two-pointer to extend the St Loman’s lead to 0-7 to 0-2. A series of slow Shamrocks creative play was eventually interrupted by Ty Masterson who broke the Loman’s line and pointed to kick start a mini-recovery. Adam Buckley emerged from the goal a kicked a great two-pointer free and Alex Sheerin pointed after a series of patient passes. Mikey Weir pointed and a great kicked pass by David Whelan released John Heslin for the game’s opening goal. A Jack Geoghegan point completed the first half scoring with St Loman’s leading by 1-9 to 0-6.
John Heslin with two pointed frees extended the St Loman’s lead early in the second half before the Shamrocks revival began. Dean Moore’s point attempt hung in the air and with Donnacha Maguire battling for possession, Efe made the trip from full-back and finished to the net. The restart was collected by Alex Sheerin who pointed and the deficit was halved (1-11 to 1-7). T. J. Cox pointed before Adam Glynn, now playing a wing-forward, turned creator. Gaining possession from a sideline, Adam ghosted past a few Loman’s defenders and parted to Killian Mooney. Killian’s crossbar-high shot created problems for the Loman’s defence and Donnacha Maguire was on hand to finish the ball to the net for Shamrocks’ second goal (1-12 to 2-7). A great Alex Sheerin run ended with a 45 which was converted by Adam Buckley and when Dean Moore converted a tap-over free the sides were level after seventeen minutes (2-9 to 1-12).
A John Heslin free was plucked from the air by Adam Buckley but a converted Sam McCartan 45 brought the sides level; Loman’s gained possession from the restart and a John Heslin point restored the Loman’s lead. Adam Buckley wasn’t finished and kicked a huge two-pointer free to send Shamrocks ahead with less than 5 minutes remaining (2-11 to 1-13). However, St Loman’s retained possession from the restart and began a move that ended with John Heslin kicking the levelling point from play.
Both teams had chances of snatching victory in what was a highly competitive match in a division that is competitive with just three teams to make the play-offs.
Two-pointer score = 2 (and 0 in the Junior 1 championship).
Mullingar Shamrocks: Adam Buckley (0-5); Adam Glynn, Dillon Matthews, Efe Siode (1-0); Brendan O’Reilly, Ty Masterson (0-1), Brian Guerin; Criostóir Ormsby, Donnacha Maguire (1-0); Alan Cashman (Ben Sheerin), David Gavin, Dean Moore (0-3), Denis Corroon (Killian Mooney), Shane Ormsby, Alex Sheerin (0-2).
