McDaid shines as Monivea-Abbey cruise home

MONIVEA-ABBEYKNOCKMOY 1-16

KILMORE 0-9

A CASE of ‘tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new’ for the footballers of Monivea-Abbeyknockmoy after this somewhat facile Connacht intermediate football quarter-final victory at Tuam Stadium on Sunday over Roscommon champions Kilmore.

This wasn’t a contest to set the pulses racing as, after a competitive enough first quarter, the Roscommon champions completely ran out of steam allowing Monivea-Abbey to saunter home without losing too much by way of perspiration.

Kilmore, through no fault of their own, found themselves caught up in a fixtures logjam forcing them to play this match just 21 hours after a famous extra-time comeback victory in the Roscommon county final against Oran.

To compound matters for Kilmore, two of their players — centre back Colm Garvey and Dermot Foley — got straight red cards in the Roscommon decider to deplete their resources even further.

Kilmore’s mission over the weekend was to win the Roscommon final and after that it was a case of fulfilling the Tuam fixture — throw in a ‘few scoops’ on Saturday night to celebrate the win over Oran and their cause was pretty hopeless on Sunday.

Monivea-Abbey though had to play what was put in front of them, and after an opening quarter when the sides evenly shared six points, the greater power and focus of the Galway champions came to the fore.

Playing into a biting east win, the winners led at the interval by 0-9 to 0-4 thanks to points from Cathal Coleman (2), Cillian McDaid (2), Brian Flaherty (2) Caelom Mulry, Craig Kennedy and Eoin Roche — in truth, it could have been an awful lot more.

Seven of Monivea-Abbey’s first half wides from play and frees were quite poor efforts while some less than deft first time touches on the ball led to needless possession turnovers — such errors mattered not a jot on Sunday, but on another day they could be fatal.

An early sprinkling of Monivea-Abbey second-half points from Coleman (2), Roche and McDaid had them 13-4 in front and things were about to get worse for Kilmore.

Midway through the half, sub Paddy Mullins found Trevor Mullins on the edge of the square with a long delivery of pinpoint accuracy and the big midfielder rattled the net from close range.

By then, the match had petered out completely as a contest, although referee John Gilmartin saw fit to issue a second yellow to Monivea corner forward Eoin Blade for a foul that would have hardly earned a free throw on a basketball court.

Danny Mullins also got a late ‘black’ for a deliberate pull-down but by then the 400 or so spectators at the old stadium were tightening their mufflers and looking forward to a belated Sunday lunch.

Full coverage in this week’s Connacht Tribune