St Flannan's slow to catch fire

Colleges hurling/Munster quarter finals/ St Flannan's Ennis 1-14; Midleton CBS 2-8: Last year's champions St Flannan's made hard work of it at Cashel yesterday. In a rather pedestrian first half Midleton CBS looked sharper but still struck four wides in the first four minutes.

St Flannan's opened the scoring with a Gerard Arthur point and this was quickly followed by a Bernard Gaffney effort, his penalty attempt being deflected over the bar.

Heading towards half-time the sides were locked at four points each but a moment of magic from Gaffney changed the complexion of the game. He goaled in first-half injury-time and an Ian Colleran point immediately afterwards sent the Ennis boys in four points ahead at the break.

St Flannan's added another four points within 10 minutes of the resumption. Midleton kept in touch thanks to the accuracy of their free-taker Seán Hennessey but still trailed by 1-14 to 0-8 as the contest entered injury time.

Cork star Diarmuid O'Sullivan's younger brother, Padraic, gave his side hope with a goal from a free in the 31st minute and moments later his foray up the field resulted in an Alan Morrissey goal, but the goals came far too late.

ST FLANNAN'S: P Kelly; M O'Donnell, J Moloney, C O'Doherty; S Hickey, J McInerney, G Hennigan; C Neilan, C Ryan; B Gaffney (1-5, one free), C Madden (0-1), I Colleran (0-1); C Tierney, N Killeen (0-1), G Arthur (0-5, three frees). Subs: D O'Halloran (0-1) for Tierney, D Ryan for C Ryan.

MIDLETON: C Cronin; C Fogarty, C Leahy, A Kearney; L Day, P O'Sullivan (1-0, free), J O'Mahony, J Ahern, P Wall, J Keane, S Hennessey, (0-7, frees), J Walshe, R White, E O'Keeffe (0-1), A Morrissey (1-0). Subs: D Ahern for Walshe. S Murphy for J Ahern.

Referee: J Sexton (Limerick).