Our Lady’s Castleblayney 3:09

St Pius Magherfelt             2:09

Our Lady’s Castleblayney made it two wins from two games in the Mac Larnon Cup with a hard earned victory over St Pius Magherfelt on Thursday last. After a low scoring first half with scores hard come by, both sides served up an entertaining second half with Our Lady’s coming from behind twice from a three point deficits to finish the game strongly and record their victory.

Playing with the wind in the first half Our Lady’s made the better start to the game. With Shaun Buckley and Mark Magee dominating the middle sector of the field they opened their account with a well worked score from Barry Mc Ginn. Ciaran Courtney added a second point after good approach play from Michael Geehan.  Both sides were guilty of a series of missed chances before St. Pius enjoyed a period of ascendancy and drew the game level with scores from Lee Martin and the impressive midfielder Shane Heavron . At this stage Mark Mc Guirk started to impose himself on the game and doubled Our Lady’s advantage with two fine scores. St Pius responded with another two scores from Heavron and Mark Bell before a Barry Mc Ginn point left Our Lady’s with a narrow advantage at half time on a score line of 0:05 to 0:04.

St. Pius started the second half brightly but some resolute defending from Fergal Rafter and Jason Murphy kept them to one point in the opening ten minutes from midfielder Shane Heavron. However St. Pius started to put daylight between the teams with an Eoghan Wilkinson goal after good approach play from Gary Doyle. Our Lady’s found themselves back in the game when the impressive Joe Finnegan now operating at full forward won a great ball in from the hard working Niall Garland and was fouled for a penalty which Mark Mc Guirk converted. St. Pius proceeded to dominate the next ten minutes with two point s from Heavron (free) and his midfield partner Ciaran Moore before Our Lady’s responded with a point from Barry Mc Ginn and a well taken goal from Ciaran Courtney after excellent approach play involving David Mc Mahon, Michael Geehan and Mark Mc Guirk. This should have been the cue Our Lady’s needed to push on and close out the game but another goal from St Pius corner forward Lee Martin left Our Lady’s trailing by two points with ten minutes to play. Our Lady’s captain Shaun Buckley now began to impose himself more on the game and drove his teammates forward in search of victory.  A second goal from Ciaran Courtney after a strong run by Buckley left Our Lady’s with a two point lead- further points from Joe Finnegan and Fergal Rafter helped consolidate this lead as Our Lady’s held out for victory despite a late St Pius score from Anthony O’ Neill.

For Our Lady’s Jason Murphy and Fergal Rafter controlled the central positions receiving good support in the wings from Kevin Mc Vicar and Barry Hanratty. In the centre field Mark Magee and Shaun Buckley had a great battle with Ciaran Moore and Shane Heavron with the Cremartin duo imposing themselves strongly on the game in the closing stages. In attack the towering Joe Finnegan proved an excellent target man and was heavily involved in most scores in the second half, while the strong running of David Mc Mahon and Michael Geehan created opening s for Mark Mc Guirk, Ciaran Courtney and Barry Mc Cinn.

Our Lady’s: Simon Atkinson, Fergal Flanagan, Jason Murphy, Barry Hanratty, Kevin Mc Vicar, Fergal Rafter 0:01, David Mc Mahon, Mark Magee, Shaun Buckley, Ciaran Courtney 2:01, Michael Geeehan, Niall Garland, Joe Finnegan 0:01, Mark Mc Guirk 1:03, Barry Mc Ginn 0:03.

Sub Used: Mark Kelly

St. Pius: Caolan Mc Ginley, Ryan Donnelly, Matthew Higgins, Odhran Glass, Sean Rocks, Gary Doyle, Michael Kerr, Shane Heavron 0:04, Ciaran Moore 0:01, Eoghan Wilkinson 1:01, Paul Mc Quillan, Peter O’ Neill, Anthony O’ Neill 0:01, Mark Bell 0:01, Lee Martin 1:01.