Foran leads UCD to victory over locals at the Mardyke

DJ FORAN was the hero for UCD as he scored 11 points to give the visitors victory over UCC in Group A of the Fitzgibbon Cup at the Mardyke yesterday afternoon.

With just three teams in the group, another win for the Belfield side at home to Cork IT next week will secure top spot and a home quarter-final. However, despite the defeat, UCC are the only team definitely assured of a knockout place – even if there is a three-way tie, CIT would need to beat UCD by eight points to qualify and even then it’s UCD they would be eliminating.

UCD only trailed after Darragh Fitzgibbon got the game’s opening score for the hosts, with Tom Phelan’s goal, set up by Stephen Quirke, making it 1-1 to 0-1.

STRETCHED

By half-time, the advantage had stretched to four points, 1-9 to 0-8, with Foran standing out in attack, while fellow Waterford man Tadhg de Búrca excelled at centre-back.

Another Déise native, Tom Devine, was a part of a trio of UCC absentees along with Shane Kingston and Mark Coleman and they lost Chris O’Leary early in the first half. Apart from Fitzgibbon, nobody scored more than once for them and they had some cheap first-half wides. Mark O’Brien and Fitzgibbon scored as UCC came back to within three early in the second half but Foran went into overdrive and had three in a row of his own.

John Power had UCC’s best goal chance but he shot wide and UCD were able to see out the game.