Junior B Football Quarter-final: Mullingar Shamrocks 0-13 Tyrrellspass 3-15

Mullingar Shamrocks exited the Junior B football competition on Thursday night when going under to a very strong Tyrrellspass team after battling hard before going under in what was an excellent game of football. The physicality was intense and more intense that what featured in many senior games this season and some of the score taking and creating was outstanding.

Tyrrellspass dominated the early stages and with points from Cathal Dunne, Peter Pierson (1-1) and Tommy Dunne (0-4) led by 1-6 to 0-3 after fifteen minutes. Points from Gary Corroon (0-2) and Ollie MacNamara (0-1) maintained a Shamrocks interest in the game. Points from Peter Pearson, Michael Geraghty and Brian Slevin extended the Tyrrellspass lead but Shamrocks responded in style and three successive pointed frees from Gary and points from John O’Reilly and Ollie Mac placed Shamrocks in a decent position at the interval with wind assistance to follow (1-9 to 0-8).

Brian Slevin (0-1) extended the Tyrrellspass lead shortly after the restart before Shamrocks gained the upper-hand for ten minutes or so. Niall Hannigan added two fine points, Gary Corroon pointed from play to bring the score to 1-10 to 0-11. Two great goalscoring chances were also missed during this spell of dominance. Peter Pierson’s goal at this stage was a killer blow to Shamrocks hopes and paved the way for a comfortable Tyrrellspass victory with points from Brian Slevin, Seán Deegan, Michael Geraghty extending the lead as two Gary Corroon frees added to the Shamrocks total. A great individual goal from Tommy Ryan was followed by an outrageous point from the same player as he pointed a sideline kick from as close to the corner flag as makes no difference. His uncle the great Martin Flanagan would have approved. We won’t see many better scores going forward.

Mullingar Shamrocks: Mikey Curley; Matthew Siode, Aaron Purcell, Eamon Breslin; Niall Hardiman, John O’Reilly (0-1), Ciarán Kiernan (Brain Farrell); Brian Farrell (Aaron Russell), Marc Eivers; Andrew Shaw (Adam Boyle) Dónal O’Donoghue, Niall Hannigan (0-2); Seán Hynes (Conor Fitzpatrick), Gary Corroon (0-8), Ollie MacNamara (0-2).