Rosemount suffer second heavy intermediate championship defeat

Kevin Boyle hit 1-3 as Shandonagh were easy winners over Rosemount in round two of the intermediate championship in Rochfortbridge last Sunday evening. With a strong crowd in attendance, the Kilpatrick outfit made light work of a mediocre performance overall from Rosemount who just never found any real rhythm until the second period. Unfortunately, by the time they did, they were chasing a deficit which was just out of reach and in the end the result was justified.

Matthew Cox opened the scoring for Rosemount in the first minute but this would be half of their entire tally for the thirty minutes. Ryan Donnelly levelled for Shandonagh almost instantly before Declan Mullen’s 45 got Rosemount their second and last score of the half on seven minutes. Rosemount’s pace in attack was, at times, befitting of the dull skies above, and Shandonagh simply did what they needed to and were able to remain ahead. Tom Molloy, the architect of most positives for Shandonagh, found Kevin Boyle and the forward swivelled and scored to restore parity. From there on, it was a case of only one team able to hit the target (they had no wides in the half either). Daniel Scahill pounced on a half-chance to rattle the net before further scores came every few minutes until the half-time whistle from Kevin Boyle’s double and Ryan Donnelly’s curling effort. At the break, Shandonagh looked comfortably in control with the scoreline showing 1-5 to 0-2 in their favour.

Whatever was said to Rosemount at the break did work for a period and when Declan Mullen landed a superb two-pointer with the first strike of the half, the Rosemount tails suddenly went up. Having equalled their first-half tally within twenty seconds of the restart, Rosemount went in search of more to claw back the deficit. Mullen’s free, Ben Cox’s nice score, and Lorcan Daly’s 45 brought the score back to 1-6 to 0-7 in favour of Shandonagh, who had Molloy’s point to break the Rosemount run. Scahill found a point to put a goal between the teams and from the 40th minute to the end, Shandonagh regained the control to get the job done. Brian Kavanagh’s two scores sandwiched a lovely, and fully deserved, goal for Tom Molloy to leave it 2-9 to 0-7 heading to the last quarter.

Shandonagh then put the game to bed with a third goal, this time Kevin Boyle finishing a neat move from back to front. Although Mullen (45) and Ben Cox (two-pointer) did draw some applause from the travelling fans, the realisation was that the game was over. Shandonagh kicked up a gear in the final ten minutes and despite three wides were able to find the fourth goal nearing full-time as replacement, Michael Boyle, weaved through tackles left and right to ripple the net. The game ended with the Kilpatrick men simply bringing the play down to a near-walking pace as those in the stand in Rochfortbridge began to funnel out. Shandonagh comfortable victors. Rosemount struggling in many facets.

Scorers – Shandonagh: K Boyle 1-3, D Scahill, T Molloy 1-1 each, M Boyle 1-0, R Donnelly, B Kavanagh 0-2 (1f) each.

Rosemount: D Mullen 0-5 (2 45’s, 1 2pt, 1f), B Cox 0-3 (1 2pt), L Daly 0-2 (1 45’, 1f), M Cox 0-1.

Shandonagh: Cian Molloy; John Fry, Ben Treanor, Brendan Killian; Gareth Carr, Daniel Scahill, Maitiú Scully; Darren McWade, Caelum Faughnan; Cathal Craig, Kevin Boyle, Conor McCrossan; Ryan Donnelly, Brian Kavanagh, Tom Molloy. Subs used: Aaron Craig for C Craig (h-t), Cormac Gordon for Donnelly (50), Michael Boyle for K Boyle (52), Jake Costello for Scully (58).

Rosemount: Peter Elliffe; Cathal Byrne, David Tone, Plunkett Maxwell; Andrew Geoghegan, Boidu Sayeh, Lorcan Daly; David O’Reilly, Declan Mullen; Pádraig Geoghegan, Éamon Boland, Ben Cox; Seán Pettit, David McCormack, Matthew Cox. Subs used: Cathal Geoghegan for Pettit (50), Eoin Geoghegan for McCormack (52), Luke Kelly for Byrne (52).

Referee: Barry Kelly (Mullingar Shamrocks).