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Thu 8th Oct 2009
Ulster Colleges D’Alton Cup Final
Dominant St. Patrick’s retain D’Alton Cup
St. Patrick’s, Maghera (Holders) 2-10
St. Mary’s, Magherafelt 0-07
The Ulster Coleges D’Alton Cup final was played at St. Malachy’s GFC, Castledawson on Saturday past and brought together neighbouring schools St. Patrick’s Maghera and St. Mary’s Magherafelt. St. Patrick’s came into the game as reigning champions in this U13 age group and their performance on the day saw them comfortably retain their Ulster title despite a gallant challenge from St. Mary’s. The real strength of the Maghera performance was in their defence against which the St. Mary’s forwards struggled to make any real impression throughout the hour. In fact it was only in the closing minutes of the game that the Magherafelt boys were able to manage consecutive scores against the hardworking St. Patrick’s sextet. This defensive platform was added to by a very mobile forward unit which picked off a number of excellent first half points before striking decisive goals just before half-time.
St. Patrick’s came into the game as reigning champions having defeated St. Patrick’s Dungannon in last year’s final – their captain Conor Convery had played in that final and it was his decision to make first use of a fresh breeze which helped his team establish their early dominance. St. Patrick’s had five points, all from play, on the board before St. Mary’s registered their first score. That Terence O’Brien free did signal Magherafelt’s best spell of play in the game as they continually ran the ball at the Maghera defence and managed to bring the score to a more manageable looking seven points to three as the half moved into the last five minutes of play. The St. Mary’s attacking exploits though left less cover at the back and St. Patrick’s exploited that extra space excellently in the moments before half time to take full command of the game. The hard working Danny Tallon fed an excellent, early pass through to the goal ward bound Niall Mawhinney who moved quickly past his marker and fired the ball high into the Magherafelt net for a seven point lead.
Within moments Maghera struck again for the decisive score of the contest. A Paul Gunning shot from the right hand side dropped short into the Magherafelt penalty area where the ball broke lose and was quickly collected by Danny Tallon who showed excellent composure to place the ball left footed in the corner of the net to suddenly stretch the lead to an intimidating ten points. Hard working captain Conor Convery added another point on the run to give St. Patrick’s a half time lead of 2-8 to 0-3 with seven different players having contributed to their scoring tally in the half.
Needing early second half scores to bring themselves back into the game St. Mary’s did grab the opening score of the second half from a free kick but from this stage on they were to discover the quality of the Maghera defence. Magherafelt raids were continually snuffed out by the competitive Cormac O’Doherty and Paul McNeill and with Conor Cassidy doing an impressive man marking job on Terence O’Brien Maghera were increasingly able to build quality attacks from the back – Oisin Hegarty, Cathal Mulholland and the strong running Meehaul McGrath pushing St. Mary’s back despite having the breeze in their favour. Midfielders Ciaran Mullan, who had kicked two first half points, and Paul McAtamney were turning the centre field battle in favour of their team and St. Mary’s were struggling to find the much needed scores. Perhaps the defining moment of the third quarter saw the St. Mary’s defence attempt to run the ball up the field only to be met with relentless tackling from Conor Convery, Peter Hagan, Danny Tallon and Ruairi McElwee with possession being turned over and it was McElwee who translated the hard won possession into a Maghera score.
Although the scores dried up during the final quarter the St. Patrick’s defence remained very much in control as St. Mary’s found it increasingly difficult to add to their scoring tally as the Maghera defence maintained their dominance and rarely allowed their opponents threaten Ciaran McCloy’s goal. The final few minutes of the game did see St. Mary’s grab three points but these were little more than consolation scores as St. Patrick’s were worthy D’Alton Cup champions for the second year in a row.
St. Patrick’s, Maghera
Ciaran Mc Cloy (Glen), Paul McNeill (Slaughtneil), Cormac O’Doherty (Slaughtneil), Oisin Hegarty(Glen), Conor Cassidy(Slaughtneil), Meehaul McGrath (Slaughtneil, 0-1), Cathal Mulholland(Glen), Ciaran Mullan (Drumsurn, 0-2), Paul McAtamney (Swatragh), Peter Hagan (Bannagher), Conor Convery(Glen, 0-3), Danny Tallon (Glen, 1-0), Ruairi McElwee (Bellaghy,0-2), Niall Mawhinney (Bellaghy, 1-0), Paul Gunning (Glen, 0-2)
Subs:
Odhran McGuckin (Cargin) for Paul Gunning
Caolan McAleese (Kilrea) for Niall Mawhinney
Sean Quinn (Swatragh), Conor McAuley (Ballinascreen), Patrick Gorman (Kilrea), Aodhan McKenna (Slaughtneil), Keelan Feeney (Slaughtneil), Niall McAtamney (Swatragh)
St. Mary’s, Magherafelt:
Dermot McGuckin, Luke McMullan, Kieran Lynch, Conleth McGrenaghan, Danny Devlin, James Carey, Dessie McColgan, Paddy McElroy (0-3), Ruairi Donaghy, Aidan Keenan (0-1), Terence O’Brien (0-2), Thomas O’Kane, Kevin Rice, Padraig Martin (0-1), Michael McVeigh.
Subs:
Paddy Duggan, Niall Keenan, Dominic Diamond, Ryan Connery, Paul Campbell, Darragh McVey, Proinsias Burke, Dylan Coyle, Ryan McCracken, Conor McAuley
Submitted by: Paul Hughes
