Shane McGuigan’s tally helps St Pat’s reach their goal

MACRORY CUP FINAL

St Pat’s, Maghera 5-7

St Paul’s, Bessbrook 1-9

St Pat’s, Maghera, justified their favourites tag in yesterday afternoon’s Danske Bank MacRory Cup final in Armagh when they had 10 points to spare over St Paul’s, Bessbrook.

The winners did most of the damage in the opening 12 minutes as full forward Shane McGuigan bagged two goals and Francis Kearney also found the net.

Bessbrook were shell shocked and while they had points from Niall Magennis and Jarlath Óg Burns they were hit again with another sucker punch when Paddy Quigg scored a goal.

Trailing 4-4 to 0-5 at halftime the Armagh school made a game of it in the second half when points from Liam Kerr and Shea Loye were followed by a well-taken goal from the latter at the beginning of the final quarter.

A goal at that stage would have cut the gap to three but Maghera regrouped with Patrick Kearney and captain Conor Glass to the fore.

McGuigan took his personal haul to 2-4 before Conall Darragh put the icing on the cake with an injury-time penalty after he had been fouled himself.

ST PAT'S: S Cassidy; O McKeever, P Turner, K Feeney; P McCormack, S Downey, C McAllister; C Glass, J Doherty; P Kearney, P Quigg (1-0), O McWilliams (0-2); C Darragh (1-0, pen), S McGuigan (2-4), F Kearney (1-1). Subs: T Walsh for McKeever, D McPeake for Quigg, M Mullan for McWilliams, C Mulholland for McAllister, F Higgins for P Kearney.

ST PAUL'S: M Murphy; C Magennis, D Loye, C McDonnell; E McCabe, R Gaskin, C Clarke; J Óg Burns (0-1), D O'Hagan (0-1); R Keenan, N Magennis (0-1), A Boyle; L Kerr (0-3, two frees), S Loye (1-3, one free), R McSherry. Subs: S Finnegan for Keenan, J Durnin for O'Hagan, R Hughes for N Magennis.

Referee: M McNally (Monaghan).