Danske Bank Casement Cup final
St Patrick’s Keady 3-10 Rathmore Grammar 2-11
There was late heartbreak for Rathmore Grammar as they let a 9 point lead slip to lose to St. Patrick’s Keady in this Danske Bank Casement Cup final on Thurday night.
WHEN Aodhán O’Hanlon pointed to make it 2-11 to 1-5 in the 50th minute, the South Belfast side looked on their way to victory with Ronan Taylor in control round midfield and Christopher Robb Rathmore Grammar looked home and Christopher Robb dominant in attack.
However Charlie Lennon brought the Armagh challenge to life by forcing home a goal in the next attack and suddenly the momentum changed with Jack Loughran and James Hamilton dropping back to crowd the middle third and pick off points.
Conor Lappin’s somewhat fortuitous goal from inside his own half in the 57th minute left only a point between the teams and the wind had been taken out of the Rathmore sails with Loughran converted three late frees to deliver the knock-out blow.
Rathmore Grammar got off to the perfect start with Donncha McGurk unchallenged driving a long ball from inside his own half to the goal area at the other end and Aodhán McLaughlin reacted fastest to find the net. Within a couple of minutes Christopher Robb had added a point.
However a few fouls around their half back line gave Jack Loughran the openings to fire over three frees and get Keady off the mark.
The middle part of the half belonged to the Belfast school with the darting runs of Fionn McCann and Ronan Taylor creating problems that Robb converted into points from frees.
However Keady got a break in the 17th minute when the ball fell handily for James Hamilton to fire to the net. Between then and the break there was just one further score, from a Robb free, that saw Rathmore change ends with a lead of 1-5 to 1-3.
Rathmore started the second half brightly as they had done in the first and they struck with a number of impressive scores. Points from Ronan Taylor, Robb (three) and Aodhán McLaughlin were followed by a superb goal from Robb in the 49th minute.
Keady looked well beaten after registering just two points over the 20 minutes after half time but the Armagh College suddenly sprung to life and they scored freely to reign in the Belfast lads as they dominated the final ten minutes.
St Patrick’s: C Lennon and J Hamilton 1-1 each, C Lappin 1-0, J Loughran 0-8 frees.
Rathmore: C Robb 1-6, 0-3 frees, A McLaughlin 1-2, A O’Hanlon 0-2, R Taylor 0-1
St Patrick’s: Aaron Keenan, Ethan McEneaney, Liam Rafferty, Johnny Loughran, Shea McNaughton, Conor Lappin, Ronan Gaffney, Sean Óg McNaughton, Darragh McKee, Caoimhin Mone, Jack Loughran capt, Cayden Feeney, James Hamilton, Charlie Lennon, Tom Fox
Subs: Conor McKeever for T Fox, Darragh Burke for E McEneaney, Aaron Monaghan for Shea McNaughton.
Rathmore: Dara Boylen, Fiontan McLaughlin, Alexander Myers, James Bready, Cormac O’Hare, Donncha McGurk, Paul Dorothy, Ronan Taylor, Fionn McCann, James McElhone, Christopher Robb, Dáire King capt., Aodhan O’Hanlon, Aodhan McLaughlin, Jay Ward
Subs: Oisín McGarrity for F McLauhlin, Matthew Armstrong for F McCann
Referee: Barry Winters (Tyrone)
TO VIEW THE REST OF BERT TROWLEN’S PICS FROM THE FINAL CLICK ON THER LINK BELOW