Photographs: Bert Trowlen

U21 Football Championship

St. Gall’s 3-16 Rossa 0-6

Last year’s U21 champions, Rossa were expected to give this year’s competition a real lash but today they came up against a strong St. Gall’s side at Cliftonville and suffered a heavy defeat .St Galls had the wind at their backs in the opening half and got off to a steady start with points from Caolan Chada and Michael Hopkins settling any early nerves.

Rossa’s chances were hampered by an injury to their top player, Dominic McEnhill and a black card to Conor Murray and this allowed St Galls to build up a healthy Half time lead of 0-10 to 0-02. Rossa started strongly in second half but St Gall’s defence stood strong under pressure and late scores from Colum Darby and Niall McCann gave a rather flattering look to the final score but the Milltown Row side were never the less impressive winners against a Rossa team missing a number of key players.