Early goals set Maynooth University on the path to Sigerson Cup quarter-finals
Maynooth University manager Aidan Minnock Photo: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
Early goals from Eoin Cully and Conor Duke proved crucial as Maynooth University overcame Dundalk IT to qualify for the last eight of the Sigerson Cup on Tuesday night.
The home side started with a flourish and had points on the board from Kildaremen Cully and James Harris as well as Meath senior Conor Duke inside the opening three minutes.
They then looked set for a comfortable passage to the Quarter Finals when two poor kickouts from Kian Mulligan handed them two goals on a plate before the game had reached the seventh minute.
The first kickout went straight to Cully who took the direct route to goal coming in from the left and squeezed his shot past Mulligan to the net. From the very next kickout, the Kildare university snapped up possession again and Harris fed Duke to finish emphatically into the top right corner.
Dundalk IT, to their credit, found their feet after that and ensured the home side were kept on their toes throughout. Full forward Stephen Mooney was their main threat all evening, giving Kildare defender Ryan Burke a testing evening and he opened their scoring with an 8th minute free before Kieran McArdle got past full-back Burke to fire their second.
With the game settling into an even to-and-fro battle, Mooney registered Dundalk IT’s third on the trot and Aaron Browne and Oisín McGorman swapped points before Duke landed a two-point free to make it 2-6 to 0-4 after 17 minutes.
Ryan Duffy pulled another back for the Louth college but a classy two-pointer from Maynooth midfielder Charlie O’Connor and a single from his partner Conor Gray gave their side a 2-9 to 0-5 lead.
Once again Dundalk hit back in the run-up to half-time with Mooney landing an unanswered 0-4 from frees, including a two-pointer, to leave six between them at half-time (2-9 to 0-9).
They chipped two more points off the gap early in the second half with McGorman’s second from wing-back and another Mooney free.
Maynooth ended a seventeen-minute spell either side of the interval without a score when Celbridge’s Browne landed a point from play before Dan Scahill, one of Westmeath’s O’Byrne Cup winning contingent last Friday, made it 2-11 to 0-11.
Dundalk needed a goal, you felt, and they felt they might have had a penalty when Burke brought down McGorman after 43 minutes, the Caragh player perhaps lucky to pick up a yellow card rather than a black from Dublin referee Ian Howley, and Mooney had to be content with a point from the free, and another one on 49 minutes, as they brought the gap down to four again.
Maynooth played largely on the counterattack in the last ten minutes with Dundalk searching for goals and points from Browne, Duke and substitute Harry Plunkett made the game safe, although Mooney had a blistering injury-time shot cannon off Cian Burke’s crossbar and Diarmuid Reilly was denied by a good block by Ryan Burke in the last attack of the game.
It was a case of “job done” for Maynooth but they would have to improve to progress beyond the last eight you’d imagine.
