St. JamesÕ minors fall short

Date Published: 01-Oct-2012

Dunmore McHales 2-10

St James’ 2-6

AFTER winning three County minor football championship titles in the A grade inside the last seven years (2006, 2007, 2009), St James’ are building again from one grade lower and they showed considerable promise in this four-point County B final defeat by Dunmore McHales at Corofin last Saturday.

The winners had grown in confidence after a 2-11 to 1-7 victory over a highly-rated Caherlistrane team in the North Board final and they got on top against the city side in a well-contested, highly entertaining second half which ended with a clinching goal by Dunmore substitute Seán Ryder.

At that late stage, the MacHales were doing just enough to stay a point up and, to their credit, they didn’t fall back into defence in the dying minutes. It was level pegging at the interval, Dunmore 1-6 St James’ 2-3, and Terry O’Regan’s city lads must have sensed victory when they came out for the second half as a strong wind was now in their favour.

But they couldn’t consistently turn possession into scores and several point chances went abegging on the overlap, when a more simple approach might have reaped dividends.

It had all looked more promising for St James’ in the closing ten minutes of the first half when they pounced for two cracking goals in two minutes. The scorers were Cathal O’Regan, in the 26th minute, and the team’s top scorer on the day, Evan Boyce, a minute later.

Significantly, Dunmore’s quick answer to the Boyce goal was a green flag at the other end, with the ball driven to the net by Thomas Gleeson with stunning power and accuracy after a series of slick passes.

Workrate was key to Dunmore’s second-half performance, especially in defence where full-back John Rattigan and centre-back and captain Colin Lyons were outstanding.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.