Junior Football Championship: Rosemount 0-16 Mullingar Shamrocks 2-4.

Inconsistency has defined Shamrocks campaign in the 2016 junior championship: the very good has been mixed with the very bad. This outing against Rosemount falls very definitely in the latter category as Shamrocks were totally outplayed by a younger, fitter and keener Rosemount team. It was left to the veterans of the team, Paul Christie, Mark McLoughlin, John Ganly and in particular Anthony Clinton and Shane Colleary to offer the strongest resistance with good support from Dylan Ledwith and Darren Keena. The man who might have made the difference, Jordan Warde, was present in his street clothes happily making a recovery from the serious knee injury received earlier in the championship.

Rosemount with wind and hill advantage totally dominated the first-half but took some time to have this dominance reflected on the scoreboard. However a string of some very fine points by Arron Farrell, Daniel Boland, the excellent Plunkett Maxwell, Niall Hannify and Niall Kelly enabled the home side to establish a far from insurmountable interval lead of 0-8 to 0-1, the single Shamrocks point was scored by Darren Keena in the opening minutes. Two very good goal chances were spurned in this half.  

Hopes of a Shamrocks revival were briefly ignited immediately after half-time when a Shane Colleary pass was volleyed to the Rosemount net by John Ganly; from the kick-out Darren Keena gained possession and cut through the Rosemount defence but his bullet-like shot rebounded from the cross-bar and with this Shamrocks hopes of a quick revival evaporated. Rosemount’s Sean Petit showed superb dead-ball kicking ability in the first-half with a pointed side-line kick and he punished Shamrocks with four more pointed free kicks in the second-half and another fine effort from play. Nathan Smith, Gary Corroon and John Ganly had points for Shamrocks before Darren Keena blasted to the net for Shamrocks second goal. Unfortunately it was too little too late and at the final whistle Rosemount were in control and comfortable, winning by 0-16 to 2-4.   

Shamrocks: Daragh Ryan; Dylan Ledwith, Paul Christie, Mickey McKnight; Sean Maguire, Mark McLoughlin, James Grogan; Pearse Corroon and Anthony Clinton; Nathan Smyth (0-1), John Ganly (1-1), Ross Corroon (Dermot Curley); Gary Corroon (0-1), Shane Colleary (Stephen Hassett) and Darren Keena (1-1).