Pats hit a bit of form to halt Blue revival
ST PATRICKS NEWTOWN BLUES 1-11 1-7
NEWTOWN Blues saw their recent resurgence suffer a setback at Lordship on Wednesday night as they fell to a four-point to their championship quarter-final opponents, St Pat’s.
The victory suggests that the home side may be finding form again at the right time, with this victory coming just days after they qualified for the SFC knockout stages. It also keeps them very much in the hunt for league honours.
The Blues looked set to continue their recent improvement when they kicked the first two points of the game, only for Eoin O’Connor to settle his team when he netted the first goal of the game - his third in two matches - on 15 minutes to put the Pats in front.
However, that proved to be the home side’s only score of the half and points from Colm Judge helped the Blues to lead by 0-5 to 1-0 at the break.
It was a different St Patrick’s side that came out in the second half as points from Cathal Grogan, Jason Woods and Darren O’Hanlon soon had the teams level at 1-3 to 0-6.
Ray Finnegan put the hosts back in front on 43 minutes and they went on to score six of the next seven points to take a firm grip on proceedings.
Hugh McGinn hit the net for the Blues in the final minute, but it was little more than a consolation score as Cathal Grogan wrapped up the win with an injury-time point.
ST PATRICK’S: Sean Connor; Daniel Rice, Aaron Rogers, Jason Woods
0-2; Alan O’Connor, Ray Finnegan 0-1, Rory Duffy; Dessie Finnegan, Darren O’Hanlon 0-3; Cathal Grogan 0-2, Evan White, Aidan McCann; Patrick Kirk, Eoin O’Connor 1-3, Conor Grogan. Subs: Sean McGeough, Patrick Lynch.
NEWTOWN BLUES: Dean Martin; Niall Costello, Kevin Carr, Ronan Levins; Colm Judge 0-3, Cormac Reynolds, Paul Moore; Jimmy Murray, Andy McDonnell; Conor Branigan 0-2, Ciaran Downey, Robert Carr 0-1; Conor Moore, Hugh McGinn 1-1, Lorcan McQuillan. Subs: Hugh McGinn for C Judge BC, Keith Lynch for J Murray, Ian Connor for L McQuillan, Derek Kierans for H McGinn.