Minor Football League Div.1: Mullingar Shamrocks 7-10 St Loman’s 1-5

A rare enough occurrence that we defeat our neighbours by such a comprehensive margin but on this occasion the scoreboard in Lakepoint Park didn’t lie as Mullingar Shamrocks dominated from start to finish but as we well know there will be other days and the championship will be a different matter. Conor Heffernan inflicted much of the initial damage with an opening goal after Ryan Kelly did much of the hard work to create the chance and Donnacha Maguire provided the final defence splitting pass. Heffernan added a point and then scored his second goal after Callum Rigney Clyne and Criostóir Ormsby contributed to the opportunity. Gavin Pierce kicked a beauty of a point after Tye Masterson made a crucial interception deep in defence and Gary Brannigan made the break that mattered. Ryan Kelly, Donnacha Maguire, Gavin Pierce and Alex Sheerin added points to bring the interval score to 2-6 to 0-1.

Criostóir Ormsby won possession on the restart and when his powerful run through the centre ended in a foul. Ryan Kelly pointed the resultant free; Ryan gained possession from the restart and powered through and sent Alex Sheerin in for Shamrocks’ third goal. A super save from St Loman’s keeper Callum Butler deprived Gavin Pierce of a goal but Alex Sheerin reacted first to tap home the rebound. Seán Plunkett pointed a free and Mike Weir goaled but two goals by Criostóir Ormsby ensured there would be no comeback. Seán Plunkett pointed three times from frees (6-7 to 1-5) but the finals scores belonged to Gavin Pierce (0-2), Tom Daly (1-0) and Ryan Kelly (0-1) on the stroke of full time brought the scoring to a close.

It was an impressive performance by Shamrocks with several good attacking moves, the conversion rates of scoring opportunities were high and there was some good defending done when the occasion demanded and most importantly of all, perhaps all 28 panellists saw some game time.

Mullingar Shamrocks: Matas Puida; Ty Masterson, Gary Brannigan, Ben Sheerin; Mohammed Mohammed, Peter Finch, Ben McNamee; Criostóir Ormsby (2-0), Donnacha Maguire (0-1); Callum Rigney Clyne, Conor Heffernan (2-1), Luke Raeside; Alex Sheerin (2-1), Gavin Pierce (0-4), Ryan Kelly (0-3).

Replacements: Adam Glynn, Charlie Foy, Matt Shaw, Tom Daly (1-0), Paul Keating, James Flynn, Ronan Byrne, Adam Buckley, Andy Gavigan, Jack Tuite, John Shaw, Billy Walsh, Ameen Hacini.