St. Mary’s Aghagallon 2-13 St. Mary’s Rasharkin 0-7
Despite the best efforts of Ryan Lynch and Eamon McNeill St. Mary’s Rasharkin had little answer in the end to a lively St. Mary’s Aghagallon in this O’Cahan Cup preliminary round played in Aghagallon on Sunday. The lively duo were to provide all the Rasharkin scores on the day but in the end the visitors had no answer to their division 1 opponents. They certainly held their own in the opening half and looked in a position to cause an upset when they trailed by only a point at the short whistle. After the break it was a different story however as Aghagallon pulled away restricting the visitors to only one further score and were full value for their win.
A sodden Pairc na nGael hosted its first competitive football of 2018 on Sunday when St Mary’s Rasharkin visited for the Preliminary Round of the Thornton Roofing O’ Cahan Cup. The visitors took the game to Aghagallon from the throw in and scored with the game’s first attack. The next passage of play saw both teams struggle with the rainy, wet underfoot conditions and passing and shots for both sides lacked accuracy and distance. However it was the visitors who changed the scoreboard again with another point just before Branagan got Aghagallon’s first from wide on the left hand side after collecting a clever, quick free kick from Loughran. Again Rasharkin came back and scored another two points before Walsh made a great block in his right half back position and soloed seventy yards past both dug outs to feed the ball to Russell who did the run justice with a well taken point. This seemed to lift the G’s and Magee drew the sides level scoring two points in quick succession, the first a high effort squeezing just inside the left hand post and the second crafted by his own hard work, he then played his part linking up with McCann and Loughran who put the home team in front for the first time with 20 minutes on the clock. Magee collected another point before the break following some good work by McCann who kept the ball alive when it looked to be a lost cause. Rasharkin chalked up the last score before the short whistle to leave the half time score 00:06 to 00:05.
At half time Aghagallon made three changes bringing on Mc Kenna, Shanks and Farr and they got off to a fantastic start when Farr finished a nice passing move involving Shanks and Russell. With the ball in the Rasharkin territory Agahgallon stepped up the work rate and went on to collect the scores in the opening four minutes of the second half that all but finished the game. McCann coolly slotted home his first goal of the season from play and then Russell added a point. When Mulholland went on a surging run through the Rasharkin defence he released the ball just before receiving a heavy challenge, to his credit the referee noticed that Mc Cann had caught the ball cleanly and acknowledging the foul he played the advantage and Mc Cann ensured that the G’s got full reward for it when he delivered it on to Walsh who having worked hard to get into position and was left with the simple task of palming into an open net. Indeed in the fifth minute of the half Mc Cann again did well to carve open another chance but a great goal line clearance kept his effort out. It was ten minutes before Rasharkin had a shot and although this range finder was off target they did score the next two points to bring the score to 2:08 to 0:07.
As the half wore on and with a comfortable lead Aghagallon began to control things, with players prepared to show and want the ball they passed it around and had the ability to inject a bit of pace to attack when they saw chinks in the Rasharkin rear guard. Loughran tapped over a short free following a foul on Russell. The home side got four more points from play the first when Farr collected in his own half and showed a great turn of pace to beat his man on the side line and deliver to Loughran who sent it over and the second from Lenehan who scored from range on the right hand side and it was Mc Cann who added the last two scores to leave it 2:13 to 0:07.
On a sad note St Mary’s Aghagallon would like to pass on their condolences to Gavin and Ryan O Neill who were missing today following the death of their grandfather.
St Mary’s Aghagallon. D O Hagan, M Mc Stravick, D Donnelly, A Doherty, E Walsh, P Branagan, P Mulholland, D Marshall, O Lenehan, F Bustard, G Magee, R Loughran, C Brady, R Mc Cann, S Russell
Pics by Bert Trowlen