St Colman's Through To MacRory Cup Quarter Finals
The College travelled to Cloughan, between Monaghan and Castleblayney, for the decisive fixture of their McCormack Cup campaign against St Macartan’s, Monaghan on Friday. The win against St Michael’s had been a hard fought, if below par performance and a significant improvement would be needed against the Farneymen.
That is indeed what the College delivered for most of the game and the secured the vital victory by a margin of five points.
The game opened positively again for St Colman’s with Dara Noonan registering a fine score off his left in the second minute. The same player landed a free from 45 metres after four minutes before St Macartan’s registered on the scoreboard. St Colman’s were winning a good share of possession around the middle third of the field between break ball, clean fielding and turn-over of possession which gave them a platform of dominance in the first half. Jack Haughey, Keelin Rice and Danny Talbot added good scores in the first half to leave the half time score 0-05 to 0-02. The score belied the quality of the football played by both sides which was of the highest order in terms of intensity and commitment.
The second half saw Danny Talbot begin where he had left off by notching another fine score to put two between the teams. Then came a period of St Macartan’sdominance. In the blink of an eye the game was turned on its head with a two goal salvo in as many minutes between the 33rd and 35th minutes. The first came from a penalty which was initially saved by John O’Hare, the Colman’s custodian, but finished to the net by the Monaghan full-forward who was quickest to react. Then with the minimum between the sides Macartan’s hit again, a speculative high ball was not cleared and the Monaghan men hit the front by two. They added a point and the gap widened to three. St Colman’s were facing a battle to avoid the lottery of play-offs. The boys responded in style, they first exchanged points with StMacartan’s and then, with the score at 2-04 to 0-07 St Colman’s went on an eight point run of unanswered points. Dara Noonan hit two more, Miceal O’Hare hit two from the half back line and Jordan Fegan and Danny Talbot also pointed again. But the score of the night came from Keelin Rice, on a wet heavy pitch he danced and jinked around four Monaghan defenders maintaining a mesmeric control of the ball and pointed with aplomb. It was one piece of individual brilliance in an otherwise gritty team performance comprised of hard work, commitment and determination.
The win was secured and automatic passage to the MacRory Cup Quarter Finals with it. It was a good performance but the hard work will begin again in earnest after a brief break. The winter slog at the College and the tour of the county over the holidays is guaranteed again. Where else would you want to be?