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Tue 8th Nov 2011
Corn na nÓg Group 3 Match 1
St Patrick’s Academy 4-8 St Patrick’s Armagh 3-9
St Patrick’s Dungannon got their Corn na nÓg campaign off to a winning start with this 2 point victory over their Armagh name sakes. This was a tough physical encounter for the Tyrone school. Armagh played with the wind in the opening half. Both sides traded points in the opening minutes with Ryan Coleman scoring for the Academy. Brian Kennedy scored a long range point in the 7th minute to put the Academy in the lead then Armagh struck for a goal. Some terrible defending where the Tyrone lads failed to clear the ball from within their 50 yard line allowed the Armagh attack to get a major in the 12th minute. This followed up with another Armagh point to put them 1-2 to 0-2 up. Then a good long free kick into the Armagh defence fell kindly to Shea Gordan who rattled the Armagh net to pull the Tyrone lads level on 17 minutes. This proved to be the last score of the half for the Academy as Armagh piled on the pressure and fire over 4 unanswered points and should have been more with a lot of careless wides to leave the half time score 1-6 to 1-2 in favour of the Armagh school.
Armagh started the second half brightly with the first score of the half from the throw-in. The Academy then started to find their feet and put together some great moves up the pitch and started to gain control. Points by Colin Campbell, the impressive Cormac O’Hagan and Brian Kennedy pulled the Tyrone school back to within 2 points. Then came a brilliant flowing move which ended with O’Hagan hitting the back of the Armagh net to put the Academy into the lead. This quickly followed with another Coleman point and a second goal for the Academy. A high ball into the Armagh defence caught brilliantly by Coleman who fed Gordan to bag his second goal of the game. The Academy were now in complete control leading 3-6 to 1-7. Two more excellent long range points from O’Hagan put the Academy 7 points up going into the last 10 minutes. Armagh were then given a lifeline as a close range free was aimed at the net, bounced off several players before being finished to the net. This was followed up by 2 Armagh points to reduce the gap to 2 points. Ryan Coleman then did great work at full forwards to bag a goal to put 5 between the sides. Late drama in the dying minutes when Armagh took a quick 14’ metre free to hit the back of the Dungannon net to put 2 between the sides but this was the last score in the game as the Academy held on to win by 4-8 to 3-9. O’Hagan, Coleman, and Jack Devlin in defence played very well for the Academy but the whole team effort to turn around their less than impressive first half performance into a powerful second half display deserves a lot of credit.
Team – Enda McAleer, Liam Rafferty, Jack Devlin, Kieran Holland, Michael McKernan, Mark Donnelly, Stephen Corr, Conor Hughes, Brian Kennedy (0-2), Ryan Coleman (1-2), Mark Quinn, Colin Campbell (0-1), Shea Gordan (2-0), Cormac O’Hagan (1-3), Daniel Kerr. Subs Patrick Quinn (for Donnelly), Ben Crealey (for Hughes), Tiernan Teague (for M Quinn), Tom Loughran, Dalaigh Jones, Ethan Jones, Kyle Brown, Brendan Haveron, Connor O’Neill, Eoghan Rankin, Tiarnan Cuddy.
Submitted by: Francis Quinn
