Crossmaglen hold all the aces

ALL-IRELAND CLUB FOOTBALL SEMI-FINALS Crossmaglen Rangers 4-12 Drom-Broadford 0-6:ARMAGH KINGPINS Crossmaglen Rangers are back within 60 minutes of a fifth All-Ireland senior club football championship title.

Disappointed to lose to St Vincent’s at the semi-final stage last season, the seven-times Ulster champions made no mistake in this semi-final.

Another Dublin side, Kilmacud Crokes, now await Crossmaglen in the St Patrick’s Day final in Croke Park.

Two goals in the first 10 minutes helped to ease Crossmaglen past surprise Munster champions Dromcollogher-Broadford of Limerick in a one-sided encounter at Pearse Park, Longford.

From start to finish, the Limerick champions had no answer to the powerful support play and diagonal kicking of a Crossmaglen side that have won the last 13 consecutive Armagh titles.

A Pat Donnelly free opened the scoring for the underdogs in the first minute, but that was as good as it got for the first-time Munster champions.

Within a minute of the opening point Jamie Clarke had the ball in the net for the first of the winners’ four goals. The wing forward finishing after just one of many surges forward by wing back Aaron Kernan.

Crossmaglen lost influential midfielder Tony McEntee to a leg injury, but they continued undeterred.

Disaster struck for Drom-Broadford when Crossmaglen scored their second goal in the 10th minute. This time John Murtagh palming to the net after man-of-the-match Francie Bellew, had ventured forward from centre back to create the opportunity.

By half-time, the lead was extended to eight points, 2-6 to 0-4.

Within three minutes of the restart, any outside chance of a fightback was laid to rest when Tony Kernan was on hand at the end of another sweeping movement to palm to the net. Kernan also scored goal number four in the 41st minute.

Oisín McConville, Clarke, Stephen Kernan all added points from play as the Munster men went 24 minutes without a second-half score.

Conscious of the greater test ahead, Donal Murtagh was able to call some of his star names ashore before the final whistle.

But still the onslaught continued with substitute Kyle Carragher and Kernan bothers Aaron and Stephen increasing the winning margin to a whopping 18 points by the finish.

CROSSMAGLEN RANGERS: P Hearty; B McKeown, P Kernan, P McKeown; A Kernan (0-2, one free), F Bellew, J Donaldson; T McEntee, D McKenna; M McNamee; J McEntee, J Clarke (1-2); T Kernan (2-0), J Murtagh (1-1), O McConville (0-4, one free). Subs: S Kernan (0-2)for T McEntee, inj (5 mins), S Finnegan for J Donaldson, K Carragher (0-1)for M McNamee, M Aherne for J Murtagh (all 44 mins), J Hanratty for O McConville (50 mins).

DROM-BROADFORD: E Scollard; D O'Leary, T Stack, E Barry; N Conway, T McLoughlin, M Clancy; P Donnelly (0-1, free), J Stokes; M Reidy (0-2, two frees), D McCarthy (0-1), S Buckley; G Egan, R Lynch (0-2), G Noonan. Subs: K Culhane for M Clancy (37 mins), J O'Kelly for G Noonan (51 mins), M O'Sullivan for P Donnelly (54 mins), D O'Connor for E Barry (56 mins), J Ryan for G Egan (59 mins).

Referee: D Fahy(Longford).