Nolan stars as Éire Óg kick off with a victory

Éire Óg’s goalkeeper Dan O’Neill put in an excellent performance and proved very difficult for the St. Pat’s men to break through. He cleared every ball that came into his space and kept a clean sheet throughout the game.

An off-the-ball brawl broke out which stopped the game for eight minutes resulting in St. Pats’ Denis O’ Brien obtaining a red card, leaving Éire Óg a player up with just ten minutes to go.

Éire Óg took advantage of their opponents lack of accuracy as Nolan continued to register point after point. Andy Walsh slotted over a superb point from fifty yards out, which was responded to with an O’Brien score.

Nolan finished his opponents chances with five minutes to go as he rattled the back of Gerry Connor’s net with a rapturous goal, bringing the final score to 3-14 to 0-10.

Scorers: Eire Og: Shane Nolan (1-10), Hugh O’Neill (0-1), Ger Whyte (1-1), Andy Walsh (1-1), Martin Joyce (0-1).

St. Pats: John ‘Dee’ O’Brien (0-10).

Éire Óg: Dan O’Neill; Sean Hughes, Daniel O’ Connor, Mark Barry; Kristin Flynn, Leon Browne, Conal Deeney; Gavin Parslow, Michael Walsh; Hugh O’Neill, Shane Nolan, Andrew Walsh; Patrick O’ Sullivan, Ger Whyte, Shane Mulford. Subs: Danny Nolan, Martin Joyce.

St. Patrick’s: Gerry Connors; Andrew Conway, Denis O’Brien, Tomas Kehoe; George O’Brien, Michael Connors, Christoper Moorehouse; Terry Healy, Christy Moorehouse; Richard Quinn, James ‘Bonner’ O’Brien, John ‘Greengrass’ O’Brien; Mikey O’Brien, George O’Connor, John ‘Dee’ O’Brien.

Referee: Ciaran Manley