O’Connell’s sink Pats in impressive late rally
O’CONNELLS ST PATRICKS 3-10 1-11
O’CONNELLS got their first victory of the season when they had five points to over St. Patricks at Darver in Group F on Saturday evening.
The Lordship men went in front with two points from Danny O’Connor. O’Connells replied with a point from Jackie Agnew but the Pat’s landed the next three from O’Connor, Jack Murphy and Darren O Hanlon. The Bellingham side got the first goal of the game after a Dean Stanfield pass found Conor McGill and he shot low to the net.
The teams shared the next two points to leave the score 1-2 to 0-6 but points from O’Connor and Gavin Gregory finished the scoring for the first half to put the Pats three in front at the break.
Paddy Keenan got the first point of the second half to increase his side’s lead to four, but the O’Connells reduced that margin to one with the next three points from Paul McKeever and a brace from Robert Quigley.
Points for each side from Keenan and Conor Kiernan kept the margin at one, but a minute later the men from Lordship got their first goal of the game after a run from Keenan who found Aidan McCann and shot to the net to leave the score 1-10 to 1-6 going into the last ten minutes.
Quigley pointed to cut the deficit to three and a couple of minutes later his team were awarded a penalty after Stanfield was taken down in the area and Agnew made no mistake from the spot to level the game 2-7 to 1-10.
O’Connor put his side in front again with his fifth point of the game but the Bellingham boys went straight up the field and Quigley found Agnew who rounded the keeper and shot to the net for his second and his team’s third goal of the game. O’Connells tails were up and points from Quigley and substitute Emmet Byrne put them four ahead with a minute remaining. Quigley got his fifth and the last point of the game to give his team their first win of the 2018 season.
O’CONNELLS: Stuart Reynolds; Kyle Daniels, Liam Kiernan, Stefan O’Hanrahan; Keith Woods, Jackie Agnew 2-1, Micheal Cairns; Dean Stanfield, Sean Cairns 0-1; Salem Rifaie, Paul McKeever 0-1, Conor Kiernan 0-1; Robert Quigley 0-5(1f), Jamie Kennedy, Conor McGill 1-0. Subs: Emmet Byrne 0-1 for McGill, Stuart Osborne for J Kennedy, Conor Byrne for K Woods, John McLoughlin for C Kiernan.
ST PATRICKS: Sean Connor; Cormac Barry, Kevin Toner, Cian Duffy; Leonard Grey, Darren O Hanlon 0-1, Daniel Rice; Paddy Keenan 0-2(2f), Cathal Grogan; Tadhg O’Connor, Jack Murphy 0-2, Aidan McCann 1-0; Gavin Gregory 0-1, Danny O’Connor 0-5, Sean McGeough. Subs: Conor Grogan for G. Gregory, Jason Woods for D Rice, Evan White for T O’Connor, Sean Cumiskey for J Murphy, Ciaran McCann for S McGeough, Chris Mackin for A McCann.