A winning start for Geraldines

GERALDINES made a winning start to the new season when they defeated neighbours St Josephs in Group A of the Paddy Sheelan Cup at Darver on Sunday night.

The Geraldines dominated the scoring with the aid of the storm force conditions, hitting eight unanswered points with four coming from the boot of Jim McEneaney while Seamus Quigley had to dive full length on 22 minutes to deny a well-placed Jim McEneaney shot.

The Joes created few chances in that opening period to leave the half time score 0-8 to no score for the Haggardstown side.

The Geraldines who showed greater composure all through in front of goal added a ninth point on the restart. The Joes created two good goal scoring chances that they did not convert and they finally opened their scoring when Conall McCaul skimmed the cross bar on 39 minutes.

The McGeough Park side added two further points to lead by 10 with 15 minutes to play and the teams then exchanged points with Alan Quigley on target from a free for the Joes.

The Cluskey Park men finally hit the net when an Alan Quigley pass was palmed to the net by the inrushing Jack Barron on 54 minutes.

In conditions that were definitely not suitable for free flowing football the sides were unable to add to their scoreline in the final stages and the Geraldines ran out deserving winners. GERALDINES: Sean McEneaney; Jack Traynor, Paddy Hoey, Tiarnan Hand; Ben Mooney, Gareth Neacy, Fearghal McDonald; Matt Corcoran 0-1, Shaun Callan; Conor McGowan, Jack Reid 0-5, Liam Cafferty 0-1; David O’Connell, Jim McEneaney 0-4, Shane Rogers 0-1. Subs: Gerard Hoey for L Cafferty, Feidhlim Joyce for D O’Connell, Darren O’Brien for S Callan, Johnny Kierans for M Corcoran.

ST JOSEPHS: Seamus Quigley; Alan Lynch, Michael Staunton, Stefan Potts; Gabriel Bell, Killian Staunton, Conall Smyth; Jack Mulligan, Peter Brennan; Alan McKenna, Daire Smyth, Ciaran Johnston; Alan Quigley (0-1), Ben Collier, Conall McCaul (0-1). Subs: Aidan Shaw, Oran McParland, Jack Barron (1-0), Jack McNamee.