Radisson Blu Minor Football Championship: Mullingar Shamrocks 3-6 Garrycastle 4-15

Van Morrison had a song for occasions such as this and our minor footballers had their 'Day's Like This' outing in Garrycastle on Wednesday evening when they were comprehensively beaten by the very strong home team in the championship semi-final.  It was only the second occasion this year when the team has underperformed, but unfortunately the reward was championship elimination.

Wind assisted Garrycastle held a 1-9 to 1-3 interval lead; only a good Seán Óg Hynes save prevented a Garrycastle goal in the opening seconds. This opening salvo set the trend and with Andrew Monaghan and Enda Mulvihill totally dominant at mid-field it was one way traffic for most of the evening. The former scored the opening two points, the latter the first goal when he waltzed through the Shamrocks defence. Dillon Matthews had Shamrocks opening point in the twelfth minute (0-4 to 0-1), Matthew Maslin pointed a free (0-7 to 0-2) and Pádraig McKenna shot over from a good goal scoring chance (0-7 to 0-3). The comeback of sorts was halted by Enda Mulvihill's  goal but good work by John O'Reilly earned Shamrocks a penalty which Trevor Keena dispatched to the net without hesitation (senior team please note). Two additional points from Garrycastle added to their lead before the interval.  

Garrycastle had the start that Shamrocks so badly needed after the interval and scored 2-2 in the opening three minutes with goals from Jason Nugent and a Joe Carmody penalty.  There was no comeback from 3-11 to 1-3. Nugent also scored the fourth goal as Pádraig McKenna (1-1), Emmet Walsh (1-0), Trevor Keena (0-1) and Jack Gillen compiled Shamrocks' second-half total of 2-3.

So a disappointing end to a very positive season for our minors who made tremendous progress  during the season thanks to the their own commitment and the work of mentors Aidan O'Donoghue,  Micheál Burke and Joe Kenny.

It wasn't all doom and gloom on the night; the performance of Matthew Siode was outstanding; Adam McCormack engaged in some spectacular fielding and Seán Óg Hynes goalkeeping was sound with good restarts. Brian Reidy and Marc Eivers worked hard all through and the under-16s on the pitch performed well. But always in football, there'll be days like this.

In the GAA there is always the next match and we look forward now to the Under-17 knock-out championship with the final scheduled as a county senior football curtain raiser.

Mullingar Shamrocks:  Seán Óg Hynes; Peter Bane, Brian Reidy, Matthew Siode; Cormac Darby (Daniel Chukwuemekg), Marc Eivers, Mark Flynn (Cian Fox); Trevor Keena (1-1) and Dillon Matthews (0-1); Adam McCormack, Cormac Hynes (Peter Hynes), John O'Reilly (Rory O'Sullivan Sexton); Matthew Maslin (0-1) [William Adzangoa] Jack Gillen (0-1) [Emmet Walsh 1-0] and Pádraig McKenna (1-2)