St Oliver Post Primary (Oldcastle) 3-14
Mountmellick Community School 0-8

St Oliver Post Primary put up a powerful display against Mountmellick CS in the Leinster Junior C Football Final played in Cusack Park, Mullingar to run out deserving winners. A minute's silence was held before the kick-off for the mother of Mountmellick's Aaron Dowling, who was killed tragically. Her untimely death had caused the final to be postponed from an earlier date. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

St Oliver's had wind advantage in the first half and made great use to lead comfortably at the break.
Mountmellick opened the scoring with an Oran Murphy point. St Oliver's Sean Reilly reponded with a fine point. CJ Healy's point gained the lead for the Oldcastle boys before Jack Carroll equalised for Mountmellick.

But then St Oliver's began to dominate on the scoreboard. Adam Rehill regained the lead with 2 unanswered points (1f) before a great move was finished to the net by Kevin Gilsenan. St Oliver's added 3 unanswered points (Jason Scully, Adam Rehill and Ben Brunton) to their tally to lead by 1-7 to 0-2.

Mountmellick had 2 great goal chances, but St Oliver's 'keeper Mark McCormack brought off great saves, with one, a powerful drive by Aaron Dowling, deflected over the bar for the Mountmellick boys third point. Two more points by Kevin Gilsenan and Keith Fitzsimons stretched their lead even further. Mounmellick got their 4th point, from Dowling before Jason Scully's crucial goal that put St Oliver's in a very strong position. A Joe Blake pointed free turned out to be the final score of the opening half.

H/T: St Oliver PP 2-10 Mountmellick CS 0-4

Mountmellick needed to start strongly on the resumption as they now had the wind in their backs. However it was St Oliver boys that were creating the scoring chances. They were off target on a number of occasions before Kevin Gilsenan pointed to stretch their lead. Jason Scully added to St Oliver's tally with another point.

Sean Reilly got St Oliver's third goal it made Mountmellick's task a huge mountain to climb. The Laois boys did not give up and then had their strongest period in the game with 4 unanswered points, all from the boot of their most impressive player Aaron Dowling. They were putting extreme pressure on St Oliver's, but their defence held out. They were off target on 4 occasions (including a goal attempt), but it was the Oldcastle boys that registered the final scores with points from Jason Scully and CJ Healy.

Overall it was a terrific team performance by St Oliver's with great defence and scoring by all the starting forwards and centre field players. Mountmellick never gave up and the score line did not reflect their play.

Afterwards St Oliver's Captain, Jason Scully was presented with the Leinster Trophy by Eddie O'Reilly.

Scorers for St Oliver PP: Jason Scully 1-3, Kevin Gilsenan 1-2, Sean Reilly 1-1, Adam Rehill 0-3, CJ Healy 0-2, Ben Brunton, Keith Fitzsimons and Joe Blake 0-1 each

Scorers for Mountmellick CS: Aaron Dowling 0-6, Oran Murphy and Jack Carroll 0-1 each

St Oliver Post Primary: Mark McCormack, Kevin Hendrick, Robert McCabe, Tomas Flood, Jordan Masterson, Josh O'Reilly, Stephen Lawless, Sean Reilly, Keith Fitzsimons, Jason Scully (Capt), Adam Rehill, Kevin Gilsenan, CJ Healy, Joe Blake, Ben Brunton
Subs: Oran O'Reilly for Masterson, Paul Fagan for Blake and Stephen McCabe for Healy

Mountmellick Community School: Noel Dunne, Fionn Kirwan, Barry Conroy, Oisin Morris, Dan Wall, Alan George, Oran Murphy, Cormac Joyce, Daniel Grehan, Aaron Dowling, Adam Brennan, Kevin Dunphy, Jack Carroll, Dylan Strong, Conor Comiskey.

Subs: Killian Dunphy, Evan Hunt, Ben Richardson, Ryan Hall

Ref: Michael McAdden (Westmeath) Tweet

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