Clarke’s Bar Junior Football 1 Championship: Mullingar Shamrocks 3-8 Garrycastle 3-8.

Another great battling performance by this group of players who are slow to admit defeat as they have shown in the previous games against The Downs, Killucan, St Loman’s and now Garrycastle has been added to the list. Garrycastle made the early running in the Mediterranean heat and led by 1-2 to 0-1 after 10 minutes with the always dangerous Killian Lyons scoring the goal. Once again Gary Corroon provided the inspiration for the comeback that began with a successfully converted mark by Gary. Brian Farrell pointed and then Farrell and Niall Hannigan combined and found Gary who with a superb turn and shot blasted to the net to send Shamrocks ahead. Two more pointed frees from the young veteran earned Shamrocks a half-time lead of 1-5 to 1-4.

Garrycastle dominated after the restart and a sloppy goal by Adam Kennedy reclaimed the lead for the home side. This was followed by points from Killian Lyons (0-2), Seán Doak and Ciaran O’Neill to extend the gap to six points. Points from Trevor Keena and Gary Corroon narrowed the gap (2-8 to 1-7) and when Kenneth O’Reilly atoned for an earlier miss by scoring a beautiful goal the comeback was almost complete. A great Gary Corroon pass found Donal O’Donoghue whose lobbed effort just grazed the crossbar for the equaliser.

Garrycastle responded and Adam Keena netted what seemed to be the match winning goal. Another great Garrycastle goalscoring opportunity was foiled by a superb save by Mikey Curley, a save that began a move that ended several plays involving several players ended when Padraic McKenna delivered the final pass to Trevor Keena who made no mistake and finished superbly for the equalising goal.

A great team effort was rewarded with a share of the league points.

A few stats from the games collected by Ashley Cahill provided food for thought. Mullingar Shamrocks completed 153 passes, 112 (73%) of these were handpasses, 41 were kick passes. Has the time to rebrand the game arrived? Can we continue to call the game football? Garrycastle completed 220 passes but Mullingar Shamrocks had the better conversion rate, converting 55% of their chances compared to Garrycastle’s 50%. Know you know.

Mullingar Shamrocks: Mikey Curley; Eamonn Breslin, Matthew Siode, Emmett Walsh; Padraic McKenna, Pearse Corroon, Niall Hannigan; Brian Farrell (0-1) [Brian Melody], James Larkin; Niall Hannigan, Trevor Keena (1-1), Kenneth O’Reilly (1-0); Seán Hynes (Dónal O’Donoghue, 0-1), Gary Corroon (1-5), Andrew Shaw.