McLarnon Cup Knockout
St. Louis Ballymena 3-8 St. Malachy’s Castlewellan 3-11
A late rally from St. Louis Ballymena fell short as the Kintullagh side bowed out to St. Malachy’s castlewellan in the knock-out stages of the McLarnon Cup at Colaisre Feirste on Wednesday afternoon.
The Down side were well on top during the opening half with the superb Ruairi Madine pulling the strings and looked well on their way to the next round when they led by 3-9 to 1-2 at the halfway stage.
Madine was the Ballymena side’s tormentor in chief during this periods but St. Louis will surely reflect on his two late first half goals which were both preventable as the reason why they were left with too much to do in a much improved second half.
It took the Kintullagh side 17 minutes to register their first point from an Odhran Duffin free but by this stage the Down side had registered 1-3 through Martin Og Brannigan, Ruairi Madine and Manus Middleton with their goal coming from Rian Walsh.
Castlewellan kept building up a healthy lead with points from Middleton (0-3), Shea Barker, Caolan Flannagan and Luke Rooney before Caleb Smith gave St. Louis a lift when he finished a well worked move to the net in the 20th minute.
Patrick O’Neill added a point but those two late goals from man of the match, Madine left the South West Antrim club with a mountain to climb in the second half.
Whatever was said at the break, St. Louis returned to the field a much more determined and focused side in the second half and Ryan McKeever, Odhran Duffin (f) and Caleb Smith 0-2 split the posts in the opening 13 minutes.
Manus Middleton and Ryan McCourt replied with points for the Castlewellan College but St. Louis were now enjoying much more of the play and Damian Kinsella gave them a major boost when he finished to the net with 7 minutes remaining.
Fullback Sean McDermott followed with a great long range point before Odhran Duffin finished a fine move to the net with time almost up.
St. Louis pushed hard during the final minutes but a Cillian Scullion point was as close as they would get with St. Malachy’s relieved to hear the final whistle.
St. Louis: 1 Charlie Cunning, 2 Shea griffin, 3 Sean McDermott, 4 Oisin Hamill, 5 Patrick O’Neill, 6 Jack Martin, 7 Ryan McKeever, 8 Sean Og Blaney, 9 Luke McFerran, 10 Odhran Duffin, 11 Sean O’Brien, 12 Fiontan Bradley, 13 Cillian Scullion, 14 Caolan McFerran, 15 Caleb
St. Malachy’s: 1 Callum Travers, 2 Harry Keenan, 3 Luke Brannigan, 5 Shea Barker, 6 Ross Green, 7 Martin Og Brannigan, 8 Daelach McGreevey, 9 Odhran McCann, 10 Ryan McCourt, 11 Luke Rooney, 12 Manus Middleton, 13 Rian Walsh, 14 Ruairi Madine, 15 Caolan Flanagan, 16 Matthew Murran
Referee: Fergal Laverty
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