St Benildus, possibly the most promising team to come out of Ireland in years, came to the AUL complex yesterday and duly claimed the under-16 Leinster League final in some style.
This was their fourth trophy of the season and despite an erratic start, when Naas twice came close to scoring, Benildus proved far too accomplished for their opponents. Naas undersold themselves. The team possesses some highly promising individuals, but came up against a side that included three players from last Sunday's All-Ireland Schoolboys' finals played at the same venue.
Pulling the string's for the Stillorgan school was Cherry Orchard's Glen Fitzpatrick, whose insightful passing and play on and off the ball posed all sorts of problems for the besieged Naas rearguard.
Not surprisingly then, it was the right-sided player who finally unlocked the defence with a perfectly timed ball to Malachy Coughlan, who rolled the ball past the goalkeeper.
Fitzpatrick, quiet enough in front of the goal, finally found form with a smashing strike from the edge of the box and his second of the afternoon merely underlined the difference between the two.
St Benildus: Miley, Sharkey, Saunders, Owens, White, Nolan, Patterson, Mooney, Rennick, Fitzpatrick. Subs: Moles for White, Flynn for Patterson, Brophy for Mooney.
Naas: Goff, Fitzpatrick, Lane, Lenehan, McIntyre, Minogue, Cronin, McMahon, Murphy, Travers, Maher. Subs: Kenna for Travers.
Referee: L Byrne (Dublin).
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)