Milltown lay out Championship credentials with double digit opening round win
Milltown's Alan Dignam takes a shoulder in the back from Ballyteague's Brian McGrath Photo: Sean Brilly
Milltown feature heavily in conversations around potential Intermediate champions and rightly so having reached the last four in the last two seasons.
But they’ll realise they’ll need to improve on Friday night’s opening Group C clash against local rivals Ballyteague in Cedral St Conleth’s Park if they’re to add the Intermediate crown to the Junior crown they won three years ago.
Yes, they won, and yes, the ten-point margin was ultimately comfortable. But it was only in the final quarter that they shrugged off the stubborn Larks and that should never have been the case with the amount of possession they had.
That was down to their own profligacy in front of the posts, particularly in the first half when they had twenty-six shots at the posts compared to just six for Ballyteague but could only manage ten scores to go in 1-9 to 1-5 ahead at the break.
Ballyteague upped their game in the third quarter with talisman Jimmy Hyland getting a run on his marker Cian Buckley, and they narrowed the gap to three by the three-quarter mark (1-11 to 1-8).
Indeed, had Hyland not wasted a close-range free by going short they would have only been two behind after 45 minutes but immediately afterwards Ballyteague ‘keeper James Walsh could only punch Joe Dunne’s short point effort and Patrick Donohue was on hand to gather and shoot to the net.
From there Milltown took control with the strong-running Ben Curran proving unmarkable on the way to a four-point haul and wing-back Hugh Hamilton was on hand to bury the third goal with the last kick of the game.
Milltown’s forwards looked particularly nervous early on, or perhaps it was rustiness after the lay-off since the league, and their three opening points came from each of their half-backs, Hamilton, Liam Kelly and Colin O’Shea, with Glen Thorpe and Stephen Ennis replying for Ballyteague.
It had taken five minutes for Ballyteague to get out of their own half and seven minutes for Hyland to get a touch but two minutes after that he took full advantage of an inch-perfect delivery from Brian ‘Hopper’ McGrath and buried his shot high to the net to show Kildare fans what they were missing as he sat out the year with injury concerns.
Milltown hit the next three points to go 0-6 to 1-2 ahead but McGrath struck a sweet two-point free to put this side back in front despite them living off meagre scraps.
However, 1-3 in the last five minutes of the half gave Johnny Donnelly’s men a five-point advantage at the interval, scant reward for their dominance, their goal coming from wing-back Kelly’s driving run through the centre of defence and a deftly executed finish to the bottom right corner.
Alan Dignam hit the woodwork from a goal chance on the restart before Curran opened his account, but Ballyteague refused to lie down and four of the next five points came their way thanks to Thorpe, Cian Loughlin and Hyland (two).
Donohue’s goal turned the game back Milltown’s way, though, and he then kicked off a run of four points in a row with Curran (two) and Dignam adding to that to send Milltown 2-15 to 1-8 ahead by the 53rd minute. Game over.
Hyland kept going to the last and finished on 1-5, but he needed more assistance from the men around him. For Milltown, a return of 19 scores from 44 shots (43%) leaves plenty of room for improvement.
Omar Dunne; Jamie Cross, Kevin Byrne, Cian Buckley; Hugh Hamilton 1-2, Colin O’Shea 0-1, Liam Kelly 1-1; Conor Sheerin 0-2 (2fs), Joe Dunne; Ben Curran 0-4, Alan Dignam 0-3 (1f), Patrick Donohue 1-1; Calum Murphy, Ronan O’Shea, Ben Heuston 0-2. Subs: Seán Murphy for C Murphy 15, Niall Finnegan for C O’Shea (temp) 45-50, Finnegan for Heuston 55.
James Walsh; Daniel Grogan, Ryan Webb, Luke Jacob; Conor Somers, Paraic Hanley, Fionn Murphy; Gerry Melia, Thomas Callan; Cian Loughlin 0-1, Brian McGrath 0-2 (tpf), Glen Thorpe 0-2; Stephen Ennis 0-2, Cathal Hanafin, Jimmy Hyland 1-5 (0-2fs). Subs: Aaron Walsh for Hanley 46, Barry Dempsey for Loughlin 55.
Ken Doyle.
