Shay Murtagh Precast Westmeath Senior Football Championship: Mullingar Shamrocks 0-9 Athlone 1-8.

With the game deep into injury time Mullingar Shamrocks comfortably and patiently defended what commentators in the past routinely referred to as the most dangerous lead in football and particularly in hurling – the two point advantage. It is still a dangerous lead as we discovered to our cost in Kinnegad on Friday evening. In the 62nd minute the lead was reduced to the less dangerous one point advantage as Athlone’s Noel Mulligan lofted a 45 over the crossbar. Athlone regained possession on the restart and a lobbing shot from Sean Dowd evaded the grasp of Eoin Doran and squirmed under the crossbar for the cruelest of winning goals from the Mullingar Shamrocks perspective. For Athlone, it lessened the threat of relegation and increased the possibility of featuring in the knockout stages of the championship. For Shamrocks the opposite is the case. We await the other results in the group matches for the definitive consequences for both teams.

Athlone set down an early marker and launched an attack from the throw-in that ended with a good point by Shane Allen from a difficult free. A similar score from Denis Corroon levelled matters before Denis and Cillian Lynn swopped two more pointed frees. Midway through the half we had the first scores from play when Eamon Martin pointed for Athlone and Dean Moore for Shamrocks – Deano with an outside of the boot job. Lorcan Smyth marked from Denis Corroon’s pin-point pass and converted before Benny Martin equalised from play. The half ended as it started with a Shane Allen pointed free to secure an 0-5 to 0-4 interval lead for Athlone.

Shamrocks equalised from the restart when Paddy Fagan kicked the first of his three second half points; a simple Athlone turnover was rewarded when Eamon Martin pointed as the second half settled into a pattern of mass defending and static possession football as both teams patiently attempted to create scoring opportunities. After a gap of thirteen minutes, Shamrocks scored their second point of the half when Conn O’Hanlon pointed on the overlap and equalised (0-6 each). This was followed by two quick Shamrocks points as Jordan Warde completed a move that began deep in defence with a great turnover by the magisterial Efe Siode; from the restart Paddy Fagan, improviser-in-chief on the night, pointed from an acute angle. A two-point lead was substantial at this stage of the game given the pattern of play but its value was diminished somewhat when Shane Allen kicked his third free of the evening. However, Shamrocks defended with discipline following this score and were rewarded in the 59th minute when Paddy Fagan again hit the target from a difficult angle after some great work by Dean Moore created the opening.

This was before the events described in the opening paragraph evolved and with the final whistle the silence of the Shamrocks contingent could be heard all the way to Springfield. We live in hope.

Mullingar Shamrocks: Eoin Doran; Dillon Matthews, Efe Siode, David Coyne; Killian Daly, David Gavin, Conn O’Hanlon (0-1); Denis Corroon (0-2), Paddy Fagan (0-3); Alan Cashman [John O’Reilly], Conor O’ Brien; Lorcan Smyth (0-1); Dean Moore (0-1), Jordan Warde (0-1), Brendan O’Reilly (Marc Eivers).