Dundalk Gaels 3-9 Newtown Blues 0-9

Dundalk Gaels caused the first surprise of the Senior Championship when they emerged fully deserving nine-nine point winners over Newtown Blues in the Haggardstown on Saturday evening.

The Dundalk side were denied a place in last year's final after a replay and on the evidence of this showing, they are determined to go at least one better this time around.

While the margin of victory was noteworthy so too was the manner of the performance in this Group 3 clash which saw them show just how effective the system of playing from the back can be.

With each player comfortable in their role, the Gaels combined superbly as a team, playing a high tempo game that smothered a shell-shocked Blues. On the other hand, when it came to launching quick counter-attacks, the Ramparts side had the pace and the know-how to open up the Blues defence. Crucially, they also had the accuracy to get their reward on the scoreboard.

The Blues may not be at their strongest at present, but nonetheless will be disappointed that they appeared to have no answers to the intensity of their opposition and the result was never in doubt from a long way out.

The Gaels blitz began from the opening whistle and almost straight way it looked as if the Blues would be struggling for answers. With very little space in which to operate, the Drogheda men were restricted to long range efforts but the pressure on the ball meant that they kicked five wides in the opening quarter.

The Gaels didn't have any such difficulties and opened the scoring through David McComish before Derek Crilly found the net on six minutes. Kevin McArdle added close range free before Hugh McGinn got his side off the mark on 14 minutes to make it 1-2 to 0-1.

The Gaels continued to dominate and pointed through Sean Fee, Sean McCann, McArdle and Gerard McSorley before Robert Carr pulled one back on the stroke of half time to make it 1-6 to 0-2.

The Blues looked to lift the pace at the start of the second half but the Gaels refused to let their work rate drop before they made the decisive move of the game with two quick-fire goals.

On 35 minutes Gerard McSorley got onto a long ball and fired past Keith Fox, and although McGinn pointed at the other end, McSorley then took a pass from McArdle to make it 3-6 to 0-3.

There was never going to be any way back for the Blues from that stage, although Hugh McGinn's one-man show helped put some respectability on the scoreboard.

He landed three successive frees and although that run was halted by a Crilly point, he added two more to cut the gap to 3-7 to 0-8.

Points from Niall Hearty and Fee completed the scoring for the Gaels as the Blues lost sub Barry Sharkey to a black card on 55 minutes.

DUNDALK GAELS: Paul Burke; Daire O'Callaghan, Jamie Faulkner, Eamon Kenny; David McComish 0-1, Errol Boyle, Niall Hearty 0-1; Gary Shevlin, Sean McCann 0-1; Derek Crilly 1-1, Gerard McSorley 2-1, Andrew Coleman; Kevin McArdle 0-2, 2f, Sean Fee 0-2, 1f, David Maloney. Subs: Chris Sweeney for K McArdle.

NEWTOWN BLUES: Keith Fox; Niall Costello, Thomas Costello, Kevin Carr; John Connolly, Aidan O'Brien, Paul Moore; Keith Lynch, John Kermode; Brian Kermode, Hugh McGinn 0-8, 6f, Conor Moore, 0-1; Cormac McQuillan, Robert Carr 0-1, Ciaran Downey. Subs: Conor Ayson for P Moore, Eoghan Judge for K Lynch, Stephen Moonan for N Costello, Barry Sharkey for C Downey, Sean Kilroy for B Sharkey BC.

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