ACL Div.1: Mullingar Shamrocks 0-8 Garrycastle 2-10.

‘A biteen flatterd’ the Garrycastle man standing beside us commented as referee Pat Fox blew the final whistle after Michael Monaghan converted the last-kick-of-the-match penalty to bring the final score to 2-10 to 0-8 in favour of Garrycastle. It was a fair summation as the Shamrocks performance, the best in the league to date, was worthy of a closer finish although Garrycastle were clearly the better team.

Playing with the aid of a strong and difficult wind Mullingar Shamrocks held an Interval lead of 0-6 to 0-1 with Alan Cashman scoring the opening two points – the first created by a great Lorcan Smyth pass, the second from an opening manufactured by a Dillon Matthews run. Ger Heneghan responded with a pointed free to record Garrycastle’s only score of the half. A great pointed sideline by Ross Corroon, a powerful run by David Gavin ended with a point and two Dean Moore pointed frees completed Shamrocks first half total.

The 0-6 to 0-1 lead was never likely to survive and so it transpired as points from Conor Cosgrove (0-2), Ger Heneghan and John Gaffey reduced the lead to the minimum by the fortieth minute. A bit of sloppy defending was severely punished and ended with Cathal Mannion shooting the game’s first goal. Five more points were added to the Garrycastle total before Ross Corroon and Jack Kelly pointed from play to reduce the deficit before Michael Monaghan’s penalty goal ended the day’s scoring.

Mullingar Shamrocks: Sean Hynes; Pearse Corroon, Eddie Moore, Marc Eivers; Tomass Turks (Emmet Walsh), David Gavin (0-1), Dillon Matthews; Brian Farrell, Lorcan Smyth (Andrew Shaw); Alan Cashman (0 -2) [Jack Kelly 0-1], Dean Moore (0-2), Ollie MacNamara; Zach Aherne (Niall Hardiman), Ross Corroon (0-2), John O’Reilly.