Spirited Athlone CC undone by Carey and Moran

Leinster Post-Primary Schools SF 'A' championship - preliminary knockout round

St Mel’s College 2-20 Athlone Community College 1-10

By Kevin Egan

For three quarters of this Brother Bosco Cup knockout fixture yesterday afternoon (Tuesday), Athlone Community College looked like they had every chance of taking the scalp of St Mel’s College and advancing to the last eight of the Leinster Schools SF 'A' championship.

The famous Longford football nursery enjoyed a very comfortable win when these two schools met in the league, but this time around Athlone CC were hugely competitive for long stretches of the game, up until the point where Andrew Flynn fired in the visitors' second goal to move them 2-10 to 1-9 in front.

That was the last action of the third quarter, with just under 49 minutes gone, and the pressure on Athlone CC increased when wing-forward Jason Mulvey felt that he was denied a free for an off the ball hit, and he was shown a black card for his remonstrations.

Aided by the extra man on the field, Longford minor county stars Matthew Carey and Paddy Moran ran riot in that final quarter with a string of wonderful points, bringing their final tallies up to 0-10 (3 frees, 2 marks) and 0-5 respectively.

It all looked so different early in the game, when good scores from Daniel Keenan, Shane Gavin and Tomás O’Neill gave the wind-assisted Athlone side an early 0-4 to 0-1 lead.

Luck was to go against the home side, however, when Andrew Flynn’s high shot was spilled by Darren Quinn and Conor Clancy was on hand to slap the ball over the line for an equalising goal.

Unperturbed, Athlone CC continued to apply plenty of pressure in the first half and they took a narrow 0-8 to 1-4 lead into the break, with Cormac Mulry and Keenan firing over excellent points to give them that narrow advantage. But they really needed a lot more cushion as the game changed utterly when St Mel’s had the aid of the biting December wind at their backs.

That natural advantage increased the scoring range for Carey and Moran and they quickly put St Mel’s in the driving seat with a string of well-taken points, stretching the lead out to four points, 1-10 to 0-9. Then a slick ACC move involving Keenan and Oisín Canny set up substitute Jack Nevin for a simple tap-in goal.

Athlone CC couldn’t build on the goal from the Pádraig Pearses teenager, however, and were quickly put on the back foot when a sublime pass from Moran into the chest of Carey left the Clonguish attacker clean through on goal and once he forced Quinn to come off his line, a simple handpass left Flynn with a tap-in.

With ACC four points adrift, playing into the wind and soon to be reduced to 14 men, the closing minutes of the contest were utterly one-sided, with Moran and Carey filling their boots with a series of points that eventually accumulated a misleading 13-point winning margin.

NOTE: For a full match report, including teams and scorers, see next week’s Westmeath Independent.