Goals crucial in O’Connells victory
O’CONNELLS ST MOCHTAS 4-12 1-16
ST. Mochtas suffered their second defeat in six days when they lost by five points to O’Connells at the Grove on Friday evening.
Declan Byrne opened the scoring with a point for the visitors but the home side replied with the next three, a brace from Niall Conlon and the other from Stuart Osborne.
Points from Byrne and Eamonn O’Neill levelled the game 0-3 each but a Dean Stanfield score put the home team in front again.
O’Neill and Byrne (3) combined to put the Mochtas 0-7 to 0-4 in front and a goal from Danny Kindlon had them in command. However, just before the break the O’Connells scored a crucial goal through Sean Cairns to cut the gap to 1-7 to 1-5.
The teams shared the first two points of the second half from Conlon and Byrne but the Bellingham boys got their noses in front when Conlon hit the back of the net.
The O’Connells upped the tempo and added a third goal through a Jackie Agnew penalty to make it 3-10 to 1-9 entering the final ten minutes.
The Louth Village team didn’t lie down and cut the lead to three with the next four points, again all from their midfield pairing, three frees from Byrne and the other from O’Neill with five minutes to go.
However, the O’Connells sealed victory when McGill got in for their fourth goal as they clinched a second win of the campaign. O’CONNELLS: Stuart Reynolds 0-1; Emmet Byrne, Conor Byrne, Kyle Daniels; Jackie Agnew 1-0, Keith Woods, Salem Rifaie 0-2; Sean Cairns 1-0, Conor Kiernan; Stuart Osborne 0-1, Conor McGill 1-1, Stefan O’Hanrahan; Jason Carroll, Dean Stanfield 0-1, Niall Conlon 1-5. Subs: Micheal Cairns 0-1 for K. Woods, Sean Connolly for S. O’Hanrahan, Liam Kiernan for S. Rifaie.
ST MOCHTAS: Fergus English; Liam Lawlor, David Lennon, Cormac Callan; Darren McMahon, Philip Englishby, Gareth O’Reilly; Eamonn O’Neill 0-4, Declan Byrne 0-11; Brendan Duff, Danny Kindlon 1-0, Barry Mulholland; Gerry Garland, Stephen McCooey, Cormac Smyth. Subs: Liam Kindlon for C Smyth, Nigel Farrell 0-1 for D Lennon (BC).