ACL Div.1: Mullingar Shamrocks 1-9 Castledaly 0-8

Probably a more convincing victory than the scoreline might indicate but a tough tackling Castledaly defence made scoring difficult and hard earned. Played in near perfect conditions in another great Westmeath club venue, floodlit St Kieran’s Park was in superb condition. The early exchanges were even and the sides were level at 0-3 points each midway through the first half with Dean Moore, Patrick Fagan and Denis Corroon contributing to the Shamrocks total. A Dan Heavin point edged Castledaly ahead before Patrick Fagan netted the crucial goal with Zach Aherne’s early stage contribution to the score vital. Dean Moore and Denis Corroon (0-2) completed Shamrocks’ first half total with Kevin Stone responding with a pointed free for Castledaly bringing the half-time score to 1-6 to 0-5 in favour of Shamrocks.

Although Shamrocks dominated the second half the sides shared 0-3 each with Jordan Warde scoring two excellent points and Dean Moore a third to establish a 1-9 to 0-5 lead after twenty minutes. Castledaly finished strongly and added three points to their total without a Shamrocks response. A notable feature of this match was the return to Gaelic football action of Conor O’Brien, hopefully the first of many games for Conor in the Mullingar Shamrocks colours.

Mullingar Shamrocks: Eoin Doran; Ryan Blundell, David Gavin, Dillon Matthews (Niall Hardiman); Davey Coyne, Conn O’Hanlon, Marc Eivers; Zach Aherne, Denis Corroon (0-3); John O’Reilly (Emmet Walsh), Dean Moore (0-3) [Darren Keena], Patrick Fagan (1-1); Killian Daly, Conor O’Brien (Trevor Keena), Jordan Warde (0-2) [Ross Corroon].