Mayo 2-19, New York 0-10MAYO STROLLED to a facile victory in the opening round of the 2009 Connacht football championship with a 15-point victory over a very poor New York outfit in front of 3,000 spectators at Gaelic Park in the Bronx last night.
New York started brightly and led 0-5 to 0-1 after seven minutes. However, once the Mayo midfield pairing of Ronan McGarrity and Tom Parsons came to terms with the soaring heat and unusual Astro Turf underfoot conditions they never looked back.
New York rattled the visitors early in the opening half and with lovely points from Cavan native Paddy Smith, former Mayo minor Robert Moran and John McNicholas they soon led 0-4 to 0-0.
Mayo corner forward Andy Moran opened the visitors’ account after eight minutes after a neat pass from Barry Moran. Shortly afterwards the floodgates opened with five of the Mayo forward sextet pointing from play. Championship newcomer Aidan O’Shea was outstanding at full forward in the opening half hitting 1-2 in an fine championship debut.
Pat Harte rattled the New York net for the opening goal after 20 minutes when Ronan McGarrity burst through the New York defence. The closing stages of the half saw Mayo hit 1-6 to New York’s 0-1.
Alan Dillon (two), Ronan McGarrity, Andy Moran and Peader Gardiner hit lovely points from play with teenager O’Shea finding the net for the second time on the stroke of half -time when he latched onto a high pass from Harte and flicked the ball over the head of New York goalkeeper Evan Byrne. That left 11 points between the sides at the break.
Byrne made four point-blank saves to keep the Big Apple in the game during the 70 minutes.
Mayo maintained their dominance early in the second half with newly appointed team caption Trevor Mortimer orchestrating a lovely point and Dillon and Harte added points from play to extend Mayo’s lead to 2-13 to 0-5.
New York’s Smith hit two points from play to narrow the gap before Mayo pulled clear as they added a further six points from play from Andy Moran (two), sub Aidan Kilcoyne (two), man of the match Harte and O’Shea.
New York managed a flurry of late points from Ronan Caffery and Tomas McGovern but Mayo were untroubled.
“New York deserve great credit for their attitude and commitment today and did catch us a bit off guard in the opening ten minutes,” said John O’Mahony. “Once our team settled however, we took control and dominated in most quarters. I was extremely pleased with the four Mayo players that got their championship debuts this afternoon,” he added.
MAYO:D Clarke; L OMalley, G Cafferkey, K McLoughlin; P Gardiner (0-1), T Howley, D Vaughan; T Parsons (0-1), R McGarrity (0-1); P Harte (1-1), T Mortimer (0-2), A Dillon (0-3); A Moran (0-4), A O'Shea (1-3), B Moran (0-1). Subs: J Nallen for Howley, BJ Padden for Parsons, A Kilcoyne (0-2) for A Moran, D Heaney for McLoughlin, M Sweeney for A Dillon.
NEW YORK:E Byrne; J Bell, A Downes, C Hunter, D Keane; A Raftery, B OReilly, R Moran (0-2); R Garvey, J McNicholas (0-1), P Smith (0-4); K McGeeney, J McGoldrick, D Reilly, F Cleary (0-1). Subs: G Dowd for Reilly (inj), A Carolan for Downes, S Carty for McNicholas, R Caffery (0-1)for Garvey, T McGovern (0-1) for McGeeney.
