Intermediate Football Championship –Group 1 – Round 1
Rasharkin 0-11 St Pauls 3-10
St Paul’s domination of the first half of their opening game against Rasharkin set them up for a convincing win at Dreen on Wednesday evening. Thirty two minutes into the game the Belfast side led by 2-05 to 0-00 and were virtually assured of victory, and though Rasharkin ended the first half with two late points, and outscored their visitors for a good part of the second half, they were never going to claw back the deficit. Lady luck was not kind to the home team either during that first half. St Paul’s second goal had an element of good fortune about it when their full forward was through on goal and fisted the ball over the advancing Rasharkin ‘keeper. Had the ball gone in to the goal it would have been disallowed but it came back of the upright and corner forward Conall Duffy reacted quickest to turn the ball over the line for a goal that pushed his team eight clear.
However luck certainly wasn’t on the visitors’ side when they lost star midfielder Colm McLarnon through injury midway through the first half. The county star, who was in great form during that opening quarter, appeared to land awkwardly when jumping for a high ball and had to be stretchered from the field, a worrying development for Colm and his team in this the opening game of the campaign. Hopefully the injury is not as serious as It first looked.
Caoimhin Duffy started St Paul’s run of scoring in the fourth minute with a well taken point and two minutes later Colm McLarnon added another. The first goal came on ten minutes with a length of the field move right through the heart of the Rasharkin defence which was brilliantly finished high into the top left-hand corner by midfielder Mark Munce and Duffy’s goal followed four minutes later to put the Shaw’s Road men 2-02 to 0-00 clear. Two more by Caoimhin Duffy and one from Ruairi Hamill brought the gap out to 11 by the 32nd minute, but in the time added on for McLarnon’s injury Rasharkin got off the mark with points from Shane Hasson and Donagh Quigg to cut the deficit to nine by half time.
If the home team were to get back into contention then they needed a good start to the second half but after an early exchange of points from both sides St Paul’s wrapped it up with their third goal, their full forward finishing precisely to end the game as a contest. To their credit Rasharkin kept battling and had their best spell of the game, scoring five of the next six points through Donagh Quigg, Eamon McNeill (2), Brian Og O’Neill (2) and Shane Hasson. St Paul’s substitute Shea Burns pulled a couple back for the visitors and after Eamon McNeill replied with two of his own for the home side corner back Ciaran McAlea rose high to palm the ball down into the Rasharkin net to wrap it all up.
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