Ballyboden St Enda's 6-10 Lucan Sarsfields 1-8:BALLYBODEN HAD an easier than expected win over Lucan Sarsfields at Parnell Park last night as they moved to within one game of achieving an historic five-in-a-row.
Losing key defender, Seán McClelland 20 minutes into the game, Sarsfields struggled to contain a pacy Ballyboden attack, led by Paul Ryan, that had opened up a sizeable 11 point lead.
Ryan who is vying for an All Star award tomorrow after topping the scoring charts in this year’s All Ireland championship was in for a goal inside the first minute.
And after Kevin O’Reilly had opened the scoring for Lucan, Ryan and David O’Connor followed up with points.
Following a succession of scores, Ballyboden found the back of the net deep into injury time when Conor McCormack collected a long ball before driving it home, to make it 2-8 to 0-2 at half-time.
Although Lucan opened the half with a point from O’Reilly, they were left facing an uphill task when Ballyboden struck for their third goal on 39 minutes. Stephen Nolan, broke up a Lucan attack and played to Ryan who neatly flicked the ball home.
Lucan did manage to make some headway near the end with Chris Crummy netting with nine minutes remaining before Ballyboden killed the game off with goals from Tim Sweeney, David O’ Connor and Conor McCormack.
BALLYBODEN ST ENDAS: G Maguire; S Nagle, D Spain, M O’Sullivan; M Travers, S Nolan, D Curran; D Curtin, S Durkin; J Doody, C McCormack (2-0), D O’Connor (1-1); P Ryan (2-6, five frees), S Lambert (0-3), E Carroll. Subs: N McMorrow for Carroll (h-t), P Buckeridge for Nagle (45 mins), T Sweeney (1-0) for Doody (55 mins), N Ryan for Lambert (58 mins), S O’Connor for Curtin (59 mins).
LUCAN SARSFIELDS: D Cunningham; C Dooley, P Kelly, S McClelland; J Byrne, M McCaffrey, B Mc Garry; T Lee (0-1), J McCaffrey (0-1); D Brennan, R Lambert (0-1), P Carroll; A Roche, P O’Driscoll, K O’Reilly (0-5, all frees). Subs: E O’Conghaille for McClelland (20 mins), N Gleeson for Byrne (30 mins), C Crummy (1-0) for Brennan (36 mins), T Sommers for Carroll (50 mins).