Drumaness advance to final at St John's expense: Drumaness 1-15 v 0-05 St John's @ Castlewellan Sun 9th Sept
Sometimes the scoreline doesn’t tell
the full story. At other times it does. Apart
from the opening ten minutes or so, Drumaness
dominated the game and pushed aside whatever
resistance St John’s could muster.
One might have expected a closer encounter
considering the way St John’s had improved
in the league meeting between the clubs. If
they were to success, you sensed that a good
start was important for St John’s. As
it happened they got off to the better start
but once Drumaness got into their strides
they were simply not going to be denied.
St John’s were first to make their
mark on the scoreboard when Ryan Gibney pointed
the free after Damien Murray had been dragged
back. Donal Kennedy equalised after being
put through by Neil McAleenan, but St John’s
went ahead again from the boot of Brian Fitzpatrick
after good work from Decky Brennan, operating
at centre half-forward. The lead was short
lived as Kyle Rogan pointed a free –
a free than had been moved in by the referee
after some indiscipline from the Johnnies.
Worse was to follow for the Johnnies as the
same player burst through to raise the only
green flag of the encounter. Half-way through
the opening half, and having played some good
football, St John’s found themselves
three points adrift. They were unable to make
any inroads into this deficit. Instead it
was Drumaness who piled on the points –
another six in fact – without reply.
The off-the-ball movement of the Drumaness
forwards was too much for the St John’s
defence and there always seemed to be a player
in blue available to receive the next pass.
The interval score was 1-8 v 0-2.
Coming out in the second period the Johnnies
knew they had a mountain to climb. They had
made a couple of positional switches and a
couple of changes in personnel. They got off
to a flying start when Barry Russell pointed
within a minute of the restart. However, any
hopes of a recovery were soon dashed as Drumaness
got three points without reply. St John’s
very nearly reduced the margin when Sean Kelly
fisted Ryan Gibney’s sideline-ball goalwards
but Damien Murtagh was agile enough to save
the effort. Conor Burns missed with a free
soon after, and Drumaness were off the hook,
if ever they were on one. Drumaness soon took
control again and added another trio of points
to give them an emphatic advantage going into
the last five minutes. In the closing minutes
Barry Russell pointed two frees, wither side
of a Kyle Rogan point. And so Drumaness maintained
their 100% record and march forward to meet
Newry Bosco in the final on September 30th.
St John’s: Ciaran McCann; John McMullan,
Mickey Flynn, Declan Brennan, Donal Burns,
Conor Burns, Cathal O’Connor; Dan Marmion,
Sean Kelly; Barry Russell (0-1), Ryan Gibney
(0-1, 1f), Damien Murray; Brian Fitzpatrick
(0-1), Conor McCombe, Conor Braniff. Subs:
Jonathan Addis for John McMullan, John Fegan
for Conor McCombe, Darren McMullan for Brian
Fitzpatrick, Joe Savage for Sean Kelly, Sean
Fitzpatrick, Eoin McKinney, Sean Clarke, James
Laverty, Steven Magorrian.
Drumaness scorers: Kyle Rogan (1-3, 1f),
Willie Megorrian (0-3, 3f), Michael Savage
(0-3, 1f), Neil McAleenan (0-2), Donal Kennedy,
Daryl McAleenan, Patrick Bell, AN Other (Number
25) (0-1 each)
