St. Michaels 2-12. Walterstown 0-9

St. Michaels assistant adult coach Martin O'Connell had to divide his loyalties last evening in his adopted club Walterstown as he managed their U-17 team, however he could do little to prevent a strong and more determined St. Michaels team from booking a home semi-final place with a comfortable 9 point victory in Walterstown last evening.

Both sides traded two points apiece in the opening ten minutes with Matthew Halpin ( free ) and Shane McDonnell firing over for the visitors. Craig McGivern sent two over in a five minute spell, one of which was an exceptional effort from an acute angle along the sideline to leave it 0-4 to 0-2 at the end of the first quarter. Some great work by Ray Reilly put Matthew Halpin through for point number five for St. Michaels and when Ben Tobin found Ray Reilly with a telling pass, Reilly who had lost his man just outside the square made no mistake in driving it low past the Walterstown keeper to close out the first half on a score-line of 1-5 to 0-3.

Matthew Halpin fired over St. Michaels opening point after the restart but Walterstown counter attacked raising two white flags in as many minutes but two converted frees from Shane McDonnell conceded when the marauding Ben Tobin was brought down as he headed down on goals cancelled out those two scores.
Walterstown kept bringing the game to their visitors and by the end of the third quarter had reduced the deficit to 1-8 to 0-7 after sending over two more points, but a Thomas O'Brien point and another Shane McDonnell free conversion restored St. Michaels 6 point lead and when Matthew Halpin broke through the Walterstown defence on 37 minutes for the games second goal the points were in the bag. A minute later Christopher Drew combined with Ben Tobin for another point, Walterstown added a further brace of points but it was all too late as a high ball into the home square was punched over the bar by Ray Reilly to close of the proceedings for the evening. This was a good all round performance from the St. Michaels lads.

St. Michaels team and scorers:
Shane McCormack, Alan Reilly, Adam O'Brien, Ciaran O'Reilly, Mickey Dunne, Christopher Drew 0-1, Thomas O'Brien 0-1, Stephen Dolan, Matthew Halpin 1-3, Ben Tobin, Craig McGivern 0-2, Ray Reilly 1-1, Rory O'Driscoll, Ben Reilly, Shane McDonnell 0-4.
Subs: Conor Smith for Alan Reilly 50 minutes, Joseph Curran for Shane McCormack 54 minutes, Shane McCormack for Christopher Drew 55 minutes.

Referee: Patrick Nelis.

Report and photo Pascal Reilly. Tweet

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