Brilliant Browne blitzes Athy
Aaron Browne scored 1-6 in the first half of Celbridge's win over Athy today Photo: Sean Brilly
A blistering 1-6 by Aaron Browne, 1-3 of which came in first half injury time, proved the difference as Celbridge landed a statement win over Athy in Group A of the Joe Mallon Motors SFC this afternoon in Cedral St Conleths Park.
A couple of patchy displays in the opening, including last week when they needed a last gasp Browne point to rescue a draw against Johnstownbridge, led to some querying whether Celbridge could reach the heights they had shown in the last couple of years when they ended up being beaten in both finals by a single point by Naas.
This result very much answers that and proves that Celbridge are very strong title contenders once again but it will lead to a lot of soul searching for a misfiring Athy side who never really got to the pitch of the game barring a spell of four unanswered points in the first half.
Celbridge led 0-5 to 0-1 after 17 minutes before that run of Athy scores levelled the game by the 25th minute.
That was the way that the scores stood going into three additional minutes and both sides would have been reasonably pleased with that but Browne had other ideas.
He dropped into a lovely pocket of space to receive Paddy Brophy’s pass and then landed his second two pointer of the half.
He went one better than that a minute later when he ran at James McGrath before unleashing a stinging left footed drive that flew past James Roycroft in the Athy goal.
Browne rounded off this decisive spell with the last point of the half and the Hazelhatch Road men led 1-8 to 0-5 at the break.
The pressure of trying to close that sizeable gap seemed to get to Athy and their first five shots of the second half were wide before Niall Kelly landed a two point free in the 40th minute.
Tony Archbold scored Celbridge’s first point of the second half in the 42nd minute and that was the first of four in a row for Micheál McDermott’s team and there was no way back for Athy after that.
Shane McNamara; John Clarke, Hugh McGrillen, Cian Powell, Dean O’Donoghue, Mick Konstantin, Niall O’Regan 0-1; Mick O’Grady, Kevin O’Callaghan 0-1; Aaron Browne 1-6 (2tp, 1), Kevin Flynn 0-1, Tony Archbold 0-1, Paddy Brophy, Fergal Conway, Killian Browne 0-3. Subs: Davy Hughes for Brophy, 47; Luke Murray for K Browne, 60; Darragh Finnegan for Archbold, 62.
James Roycroft; Sean Moore, Padraig Spillane, Michael Spillane, Brian Maher, Cathal McCarron, James McGrath; Kevin Feely, David Hyland; Colm Moran 0-2 (1’45) Barry Kelly, Conor Doyle 0-1, Ronan Kelly, Ben Purcell 0-2 (1f), Niall Kelly 0-4 (1tpf). Subs: Liam McGoven 0-1f for R Kelly, 10; Darren Lawlor for B Kelly, 49; Jack Dooley for Doyle, 63.
Frank Delaney
Read our score-by-score update here
