Maudlintown’s day!
Town side win battle of the Mary’s
FREE-SCORING St. Mary’s (Maudlintown) were full value for their four-point victory over their Rosslare counterparts in this exciting Enniscorthy Farm Systems Wexford District Junior ‘B’ football championship final played before a large crowd in Carne on Saturday.
Trailing by one point at the interval, the Wexford town side played some of their best football through the second 30 minutes, and not even the loss of influential midfielder Paul O’Connor through injury could upset them.
They kicked over some excellent long-range points in their drive for victory, with the end result making it a wonderful weekend for the club, given that their Intermediate side qualified for the county quarter-final on Friday when overwhelming town rivals, St. Joseph’s.
The Rosslare side’s cause was not helped by an inability of their forward line to turn hard-won possession into scores, with some wayward finishing coming back to haunt them, particularly in the closing ten minutes as they pressed for that all-important goal.
It failed to arrive though as they came up against some tenacious defending on the part of the winners, for whom Mark Healy and P.J. Fanning were outstanding in defence.
Rosslare hit the ground running and led by 0-3 to 0-1 at the end of the opening quarter, with Liam O’Connor, Daire Heffernan and Kevin Power getting on the scoresheet, while Roy Doyle responded with a neat point in between.
The town side were soon back on level terms with fine points from Conor Keeling and a Barry Harpur free.
After a Daire Heffernan point had restored the port side’s lead, the all-important goal arrived one minute before the break.
Rosslare ‘keeper Darragh Hayes saved excellently from Barry Harpur but Conor Keeling was on hand to send the breaking ball to the net, although Rosslare finished off the half with points from Aaron Kehoe and Daire Heffernan to lead by 0-7 to 1-3 at the interval.
The town side’s cause was hugely helped in the second-half by the ability of their forwards to turn their possession into scores, as within six minutes of the restart they had kicked over three unanswered points through Conor Keeling, Harpur (free) and Keeling once again to lead by 1-6 to 0-7.
But the response from the opposition was impressive as they bounced back for quick points from Daire Heffernan and Rees Broaders to tie the sides (0-9 to 1-6) after 42 minutes.
With just two points separating the sides entering the closing minute, the eventual winners received a setback when midfielder Kieran Moroney was straight red carded, but they put it behind them.
They finished explosively, adding points through Ramash Bhadan and an excellent Harpur finish to run out deserving fourpoint winners.
St. Mary’s (Maudlintown): Luke Rogan; Conal Lynch, Mark Healy, Tre Long; P.J. Fanning, Emmet Keeling, Ramash Bhadan (0-1); Kieran Moroney, Paul O’Connor; Harry Kavanagh, Cian Whelan, Barry Harpur (0-6, 3 frees); James Murray, Conor Keeling (1-3), Roy Doyle (0-1). Subs. - Chris Kehoe for O’Connor, inj., James Flood for E. Keeling (black card), Tony Duggan for Flood.
St. Mary’s (Rosslare): Darragh Hayes; Philip Lambert, Ned Power, Paul Fortune; Darragh Brohan, Conal Grant, Seán Stewart; Richard Bent, Conor Cafferkey; Daire Heffernan (04), Liam O’Connor (0-1), Kevin Power (0-2); Andy Cummins, Rees Broaders (0-2, 1 free), Aaron Kehoe (0-1). Subs. - Ben Hayes for Fortune, Mick McInerney for Broaders, Broaders for Lambert, Alan Hyland for McInerney.
Referee: Kevin Kehoe (Our Lady’s Island).