NEWTOWN BLUES 0-16
O RAGHALLAIGHS 0-8

Louth senior Champions, Newtown Blues, began the defence of their Joe Ward crown with an eight-point win over the O Raghallaighs at the Gaelic Grounds on Thursday night.

In the end the Newfoundwell side were good value for their win but only after being made fight to shake off the stubborn O Raghallaighs resistence.

In what turned out to be a disappointing encounter, the Blues didn't help their own cause by wasting a series of chances over the hour. At times it looked as if the champions might regret those missed opportunities but they raised their game in the second half to claim a deserved victory.

The holders made the decisive move inside the opening minutes of the second half when they scored three quick points to double their half time advantage and from that stage there was no way back for the O Raghallaighs.

The Blues began the game in impressive fashion with Andy McDonnell opening the scoring from a '45' before Keith Arnold added a second. Chris Smith landed the first score for the O Raghallaighs in the fifth minute but the Blues looked to have taken a firm grip on proceedings when James Murray and Hugh McGinn made it 0-4 to 0-1.

The O Raghallaighs hopes were hampered by the loss of Joe Rogan to injury after two minutes but they recovered well and took advantage of the Blues failings in front of goal when Smith added two more scores to reduce the gap to 0-5 to 0-4. However, the Blues responded in the closing stages of the second half and a fine long range effort from John Kermode in the 30th minute sent his team in at the break with a 0-8 to 0-5 advantage.

The O Raghallaighs were still very much in contention at that stage, but their hopes faded early in the third quarter when Blues finally took charge of the game. Barry Sharkey was among the points as the Newfoundwell outfit stretched the lead to 0-12 to 0-6 after 40 minutes.

The O Raghallaighs did pull one point back but they were unable to sustain the effort of the first half and they conceded the next four points as the Blues wrapped up a comfortable win.

NEWTOWN BLUES: Conor Barton; Damien Moore, Eoghan Judge, Andrew Tinley; John Connolly, Andy McDonnell 0-1, James Murray 0-1; Colm Judge 0-4, Keith Lynch; Conor Moore, Hugh McGinn 0-3, Brian Kermode; Keith Arnold 0-3, Derek Kierans, John Kermode 0-1. Subs: Barry Sharkey 0-1 for J Kermode, Niall Costello for D Moore, Conor Branagan 0-1 for H McGinn, Emmet Judge for 0-1 for C Moore.

O RAGHALLAIGHS: Joe Flanagan; Stephen Murphy, Johnny Clerkin, Graham Leech; Kevin McCormack, James Moonan, Alan Doyle 0-1; Ciaran Brassil, Robert Mulroy; Joe Rogan, Damien Boyle, Chris Smith 0-3; Ben Rogan 0-1, Damhan Finnegan, Keith Hughes 0-1. Subs: Stephen Smith for J Rogan, Andrew Rogan for J Clerkin, Joe Rogan for D Boyle, Craig McEnteggart 0-2 for D Finnegan, James Morgan for G Leech. Tweet

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