Trinity scrap but UCD's class tells

NOBODY expected the reigning Sigerson Cup champions UCD to be ambushed by Trinity in yesterday's Colours match at Belfield However, the visitors showed plenty of spirit and some incisive touches up front and managed to keep the result just about within their sights until the very end.

Overall UCD had too much strength throughout the field and too much football despite the absence through suspension of everyone's Footballer of the Year, Trevor Giles.

It was UCD's third successive Colours win, and the foundations for the success were laid at midfield where Ciaran McManus turned in a forceful performance. He helped throw a curtain across the middle, starving Trinity's forwards and subjecting their defence to a great deal of pressure.

In attack, particularly the full forward line, UCD had the wherewithal to exploit the possession. David Nestor, of All Ireland finalists Mayo, was in the left corner but struggled to make a big impact early on. Nonetheless, he followed up an anonymous first quarter with a stylish display sprinkled with three points.

His colleague in the other corner, Derek Savage, is no more burly than Nestor but had a thoroughly commanding afternoon, contributing seven points, four from play, to his team's total.

Full forward Maurice Horan wasn't always served with ideal ball and his marker Anthony Maguire was sufficiently tight and competent to draw attention to the fact. Despite this, Horan put himself about to good effect, scoring a point and providing four assists for his prolific corner men.

Trinity scrapped hard to turn the tide and were quite well served in the spine of their defence with centre back David McConville dependable in front of Maguire. In addition the fine Laois footballer Ian Fitzgerald dropped back from, wing forward to perform some useful acts of hoovering within the crowded confines of his defence.

As in last year's Colours, Fitzgerald was at the heart of Trinity's successful efforts to keep in touch. Aside from helping out at the back, he contributed 1-6 of his team's total and delivered a number of those scores at vital stages during the match.

Among these was a goal after 15 minutes. The match had looked to be running away from Trinity early on and they trailed 0-1 to 0-4 after 10 minutes. Fitzgerald and Donal Boland, a handful at full forward for his tough marker John Quinn, trimmed the gap to a point before an error by UCD goalkeeper Noel Mulvihill allowed Fitzgerald in and he cracked home the goal from a right hand angle.

UCD then reeled off five points but Fitzgerald's score helped keep his side and at the interval, there were only two points in it, 0-10 to 1-5.

Again the winners, picking off a series of well taken points, pulled away in the second half with only Fitzgerald's frees maintaining any sense of possible excitement. When Savage pushed UCD four clear, 0-16 to 1-9, in the 54th minute, the match at last looked settled.

Then, within the space of the 56th minute, Trinity shot two points. The first should have been a goal after Boland slipped the defence and drove the ball at an acute angle past Mulvihill only for the inside of the right hand upright to bounce out the shot. Kieran Brennan pointed.

A grandstand finish was denied, however, when the inevitable duo of Savage and Nestor restored the four point margin within two minutes.