ST PATRICKS 1-14

O'CONNELLS 0-7

St Patricks will play their championship football in the senior grade next year after defeating O'Connell's by ten points in Darver on Friday night.

The reigning champions have been below their best all season but stepped up to the challenge in this relegation play-off final to come out with a victory that sees the O'Connells return to the Intermediate ranks for 2017.

However, they didn't have it all their own way and going into the final quarter, the Bellingham side was very much in contention. Ultimately, the Pats had too much quality and they scored the final ten points of the game against a tiring O'Connells.

It as the Pats who had the better of the opening period and early scores from Danny O'Connor, Karl White and Paddy Keenan, but Cian Doyle and Salem Rifaie kept the O'Connells in touch.

Paddy Keenan then scored the only goal of the game after Sean Connolly had made two fine saves before the midfielder added a point soon after to make it 1-4 to 0-2.

However, the O'Connells enjoyed their best spell of the game and scores from Robert Quigley, Doyle and Rifaie cut the gap to 1-4 to 0-5 at half time.

The Bellingham side continued to dominate at the start of the second half and scored through Doyle and Quigley to level the game.

However, that proved to be their final scores of the game as the Pats picked themselves up and took control for the remainder of the match.

Keenan restored his side's lead before Karl White, Aidan McCann and Danny O'Connor gave them breathing space as they led by 1-8 to 0-7 with ten minutes to play.

The O'Connells were unable to find a response and the Lordship side were dominant in the closing stages with Daragh Lafferty, O'Connor and Karl White among the scorers as they eventually won by ten points.

ST PATRICKS: Sean Connor; Kevin Toner, Darren O'Hanlon, Owen Zamboglou; Ray Finnegan, Dessie Finnegan, Eoin Lafferty; Paddy Keenan 1-4 (1f), Eamonn Breen; Aidan McCann 0-2, Karl White 0-4, Ross Murphy; Daniel O'Connor 0-2, Darragh Lafferty 0-2, Thomas McCann. Subs: Conor Grogan for E. Lafferty, Jason Woods for K. White, Cathal Grogan for R. Murphy.

O'CONNELLS: Sean Connolly; PJ Tuite, Keith Woods, Jason Carroll; Salem Rifaie 0-2, Jackie Agnew, John McLoughlin; Dean Stanfield, Conor McGill; John Flanagan, Robert Quigley 0-2 (1f), Paul McKeever; Emmet Byrne, Sean Cairns, Cian Doyle 0-3 (1f). Subs: David Hoey for K. Woods (BC), Ciaran O'Brien for J. McLoughlin.

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