Kildare 0-21 UCD 1-5
Jason Ryan has raised the issue of college teams competing in the inter-county pre-season tournaments again after his side trounced UCD at St Conleth's Park to set up a Bord na Móna O'Byrne Cup semi-final against DIT next Sunday.
A wonderful Darroch Mulhall scored nine points for the home side but it was the circumstances surrounding the suspected medial knee ligament injury picked up by midfielder Tommy Moolick, who was lining out in UCD colours, that Ryan was unhappy about.
“You’d question the wisdom of having county players playing against their own county, you’d question the wisdom of having the universities in the O’Byrne Cup in the first place and you’d question the wisdom of asking an amateur player to play a full game on a Sunday, a full game on a Wednesday and Tommy started again today, so it’s not ideal.
“I’m not saying if Tommy hadn’t played on Wednesday he wouldn’t have got injured today but when you’ve a load like that… Tommy’s playing midfield and he’s played every minute of the game the last two games they played. That shouldn’t have happened and certainly if he was playing with Kildare it wouldn’t have happened.”
Mulhall terrorised UCD with six points from play as well as three from frees, while Tomás O’Connor proved a handful for the visiting defence as well, when the game was still a contest.
Another Kildare man, Niall Kelly kicked a couple of nice scores for the students, and Ryan Basquel scored a 34th minute goal but it was still 0-11 to 1-3 at half time.
Fionn Dowling and Padraig Fogarty helped themselves after the resumption as Kildare strolled to a 13-point success.
Kildare: M Donnellan, G Farrell, C Fitzpatrick, S Campbell, D O'Brien, E Doyle, C O'Donoghue, G White, H Lynch 0-1, E O'Flaherty 0-3(1f), D Mulhall 0-9(6fs), K Murnaghan, E Callaghan 0-1, T O'Connor 0-1, F Dowling 0-4. Subs: S McNally for O'Donoghue inj (31), J O'Connor for Doyle (48), B Kinihan for Fitzpatrick blood (52-55), P Fogarty 0-2 for Mulhall (54), Kinihan for Fitpatrick (59), S Hanafin for Callaghan (62), T Corley for Donnellan (66)
UCD: E Keogh (Laois), C Carr (Dublin), D Byrne (Dublin), S Mulvanney (Dublin), C Lenehan (Meath), P Harnan (Meath), N O'Reilly (Meath), T Moolick (Kildare), M Cahalin (Dublin), E Nolan (Wexford, N Kelly (Kildare) 0-3(2fs), B Fenton (Dublin), R Basquel (Dublin) 1-2 (0-1f), C Sheridan (Meath), L Connerton (Longford). Subs: S McEntee (Meath) for Harnan in (29), A Murphy (Wicklow) for Mulvanney (ht), G Staples (Wexford) for Carr inj (43), E O'Byrne (Wexford) for Moolick inj (50), A Jordan (Mayo) for Connerton (52), S Kilcoyne (Sligo) for Nolan (61)
Referee: D Maher (Westmeath)
