Danske Bank Mageean Cup semi-final
St Pat’s substitute Padraig O’Kane fires the ball high to the St Louis net during his team’s Danske bank Mageean Cup semi-final victory over the Ballymena college at the Loop. Pic by Dylan McIlwaine
St Patrick’s Maghera 4-12 St Louis Ballymena 1-10
By Seamus McAleenan
Forty-seven minutes into Tuesday’s Danske Bank Mageean Cup semi-final in the Loup Richie Mullan placed Martin Quinn for a Maghera point to level at 0-9 to Ballymena’s 1-6.
Up until that point, Maghera were struggling to convert a good degree of possession into scores against a dogged St Louis defence in which Aaron Crawford, Brian McNaughton, Eoghan McGrath and Ryan McGarry hurled superbly.
In the opening half St Louis hit just one wide but relied totally on the excellent Liam McCann to score from frees during the second half. At no stage in the game were they able to match their opening quarter when they built up a 1-5 to 0-4 lead with some very crisp quick hurling.
Eventually the floodgates opened with the Derry school finding the net four times to march through to the final next weekend on a quite emphatic score-line that doesn’t really do justice to St Louis.
Ballymena will have been happy with the first half going in at the break 1-5 to 0-6 up, the goal coming from Sean O’Neill who picked up the sliotar in the clear and ran right in on goal in the 14th minute.
Liam McCann fired over four points, two from frees, as the mid Antrim side made the most of their openings, while frustrating their opponents. Indeed Maghera went 16 minutes without a score in that period, Richie Mullan ending the drought with two long range frees.
However the Kevin Lynch’s sharp-shooter saw his penalty saved well by Adam Mooney right on half-time and it took all of the third quarter before Maghera worked out how to break them down.
St Louis goalkeeper Adam Mooney saves Richie Mullan’s penalty late in the opening half. Pic by Dylan McIlwaine
Substitute Padraig O’Kane opened a gap by tapping home the first goal from close range after a mazy run from right half forward in the 48th minute.
By this stage free-taker Mullan had moved from defence to the full-forward line and his hand-pass sent in Tiarnán McHugh for a second goal in the 52nd minute.
60 seconds later the pair combined again for Mullan to rattle the net and four minutes later O’Kane showed real determination to kick home a fourth major from close range.
Ballymena will be disappointed with how the last quarter went – but they failed to score from open play after the 18th minute and can have little complaint about the eventual outcome
St Patrick’s C Henry, O Magill, L McCann, R Mulholland, N McNicholl, T Walsh, R Mullan 1-6, 0-5 frees, P Quinn, M Quinn 0-1, M McCormick 0-1, P McLaughlin 0-2 frees, F Ó Caiside, Ruairi Raffferty, T McHugh 1-2, D Bradley.
Subs : P O’Kane 2-0 for D Bradley (35), F Bradley for R Mulholland (54), E McKenna for T McHugh (60)
St Louis : A Mooney, P Kinsella, A Crawford, B McNaughton, C McFadden, R McGarry, E McGrath, L McCann 0-9, 0-7 frees, S McFadden, C Scullion, A McGrath, E Elliott, D Fagan, S O’Neill 1-0, A McNeilly 0-1.
Subs : J Dixon for D Fagan (36), S O’Boyle for P Kinsella (46), P McGilligan for S O’Boyle (53).
Pics by Dylan McIlwaine