YOUNG IRELANDS 1-14
NH MALACHI 1-12

Dundalk Young Irelands ensured they will be playing in the Intermdediate Championship next year after they withstood a spirited fightback from Nh Malachi in the relegation play-off final on Friday night.

As a result of their defeat at Darver, the Mals will be back competing for the Christy Bellew Cup but they can take some consolation from the fact that they went down fighting and in the end will consider themselves unlucky not to have snatched victory.

However, in the end it was the Young Irelands who had that little bit extra and with the scoring power of Dean Maguire and the reintroduction of brother Derek after injury for the final quarter, they just did enough to cling on for victory.

The early indications were that that this would be a very comfortable outing for the Dundalk men as a bright started yielded two Dean Maguire points before Andrew Nixon fired in the opening goal on five minutes.

The impressive Colin Rooney got the first of his nine points to open the Malachis account but Jordan O'Donoghue and Maguire fired over to make it 1-4 to 0-1 after the first quarter.

However, the Border side were given hope when Feidhlim Daly hit the net on 16 minutes and with Michael Murtagh and Rooney cancelling out efforts from O'Donoghue and Dean Maguire, the score was 1-6 to 1-3 after 25 minutes.

The Dundalk men had the better of the remainder of the half with points from Dean Maguire, O'Donoghue and Dermot Mone before Colin Rooney landed a late free to cut the deficit to 1-9 to 1-4 at half time.

Within 12 minutes of the restart, the Young Irelands knew they were in for a real battle as Rooney kicked three in succession. That promoted the manager to bring Derek Maguire back into the game and he responded with an immediate point.

However, the Mals weren't finished and scores from Murtagh and Rooney had cut the lead to 1-10 to 1-9 at the start of the final quarter.

The Dundalk side always appeared to have that extra bit of quality but they couldn't shake off the battling opposition and suffered another blow when Peter McCourt picked up a second yellow with ten minutes to play.

Derek Maguire and Edward Laverty exchanged scores before Peter Flynn and Maguire increased the gap to 1-13 to 1-10 entering the closing stages. The loss of Ronan Greene to injury affected his side's chances and although Rooney landed two late points, Dean Maguire replied for the Young Irelands to see them scrape over the line.

YOUNG IRELANDS: Fergal Sheeky; Ryan Malone, Simon Flynn, Robbie Farrell; Sean Laverty, Cian O Naraigh, Peter McCourt; Kevin Keelan, Peter Flynn 0-1; Dean Maguire 0-6, Derek Maguire 0-3, Dermot Mone 0-1; Jordan O'Donoghue 0-3, Andrew Nixon 1-0, Mark Savage. Subs: Stephen Lally for Derek Maguire, Derek Maguire for K Keelan, Jason Mulligan for C O Naraigh.

NH MALACHI: Liam McCann; David Begley, Tiarnan Gonnelly, Conor Gonnelly; David Rogers, Ronan Greene, Donal Begley; Colin Rooney 0-9, Padraig Moley; Shane Roddy, Ronan McElroy, Jamie Kelly; Ronan Lynch, Eamon Agnew, Feidhlim Daly 1-0. Subs: Michael Murtagh 0-2 for J Kelly, Edward Laverty 0-1 for R Lynch, Ronan Lynch for R Greene.

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