Sigerson Cup St Mary's Belfast 1-10 IT Tallaght 1-6: St Mary's Belfast made hard work of beating IT Tallaght at St Anne's yesterday, but eventually ran out deserved winners by four points. Leo Meenan's three points proved vital, although the winning margin flattered Tallaght.
They controlled the midfield through Conall Martin and Daniel Gordon, whose towering leaps, clean catches and smart passing provided the platform for the bulk of their attacks as they led 0-6 to 0-2 at half-time.
Tallaght took the lead after five minutes through Donal Ryan, but St Mary's hit back with a Barry McGoldrick point in the 29th minute. From there on, despite Tallaght's best second-half efforts, there was only one team that counted.
A quick ball out of defence by Gordon found Martin Murray, who broke at speed, exchanged passes with Brown, and placed the ball into the bottom corner for St Mary's goal in the final minute. Ross O'Brien's fisted goal from Ryan's knockdown merely made the scoreline respectable.
IT TALLAGHT: Frankie Kilkelly; Stephen Dowling, Craig Curtis, Shane Tully; Neil Costello (0-1, 45), Fergus Morris, Gavin Finn; Peter Paul Galligan, Niall Clarke (Declan Burke); Shane Durkin, John O'Brien (0-2, free), Ross O'Brien (1-1); Ronan Cabbis (John Bernie), Donal Ryan (0-3, 2 frees), Dean Fitpatrick.
ST MARY'S: Michael O'Kane; Thomas Hackett (0-1), Joseph McMahon, Joseph Ball; Mark McCullough, Justin McMahon, Martin Murray (1-0); Conall Martin (0-1), Dan Gordon; James Lavery, Barry McGoldrick (0-1), Gareth O'Neill; Leo Meenan (0-3, 2 frees), Mark Donnelly (0-1), Ryan Keenan (0-1, free) (Jason Brown 0-2, one 45).
