Colleges: Pats power towards semi final
November 14, 2014
Trim's Aaron Lynch
Pats Juvenile Footballers took a big step towards qualifying for the semi-finals of the North Leinster Championship for the first time in 3 years. The Navan side made light work of collecting the 2 points that were needed from today's game, played in windy and cool conditions on what was a fabulous Astro-Turf Pitch in the grounds of St.Loman's in Mullingar. Report by Brian Dowling
St Pats Navan 11-18 Athlone CC 1-3
It was all one way traffic from the first whistle to the last with Pats scoring 7 goals in the first half. Athlone simply just didn't know what hit them.
A brilliant display from corner back's Gerard Dillon and Ruairí "Ru" Searle made life incredibly hard for Athlone, who relied a lot on Route 1 football. Full-back Oisin Corrigan broke a lot of the ball, knowing someone wearing either 2 or 4 would gain possession from the loose ball.
A superior and capitalising full-forward line for the men in Black and Amber, made the midfielders and half-backs jobs a lot easier, knowing that when a ball was hit towards the corners, a Pats player would regularly come out with the ball.
Athlone opted to play their Number 15 in a sweeper role in the first half, which left Gerard Dillon free, and likewise, he then played a sweeper, collecting majority of ball hit in his direction.
Pat's corner forward Aaron Lynch started brightly, winning a ball in the corner inside the first minute. Turning his man inside he went straight for goal and shot low, and was unlucky to see it hit the side netting. Moments later he made no mistake. Gerard Dillon was fed with a ball from wing back Shane McInery. Dillon, who saw acres of space, charged forward, he handed it off to Dillon Keating, who then flicked it to Lynch, who saw his shot saved brilliantly by the keeper. But, the ball was fed out to full forward, Craig Munnelly, who's shot was held by the strong breeze. It then fell to Lynch and this time he buried the ball in the net.
Dillon set off on another charge up the field just 3 minutes later. This time he fed it to excellent centre-forward, Padraig Finnerty, who flicked it off to wing-forward, Dillon Morgan, and Morgan raised the white flag. Athlone did then register a point of their own, with Pat's goalkeeper Joey Moore picking the ball off the ground outside the square which results in a 14 yard free. Athlone tapped it over.
The first half was over-shadowed by an event which occurred down in the Athlone full-forward line. The Athlone full-forward was chasing after a ball heading for the end line. He didn't keep it and proceeded to smashing himself into the fence surrounding the pitch, which resulted in his boot getting stuck in it. The game was stopped for about 3 minutes with the Athlone full-forward, with the help of his mentors, trying to get his boot out of the fence. It eventually popped out and the game resumed.
The remainder of the first saw Pats keep up their dominance with points coming from Lynch, and a beautiful left footed point from other corner-forward Keating. This period also saw pats net five goals with a brilliant goal coming from corner back Searle, a fisted goal from Lynch, two from Morgan, and a bullet from Finnerty after a surging run straight through the heart of the Athlone defence. Athlone couldn't come to grips with this Pats performance, and could only respond with 1-2 to close out the half.
The second half was all Pats, with Athlone only registering one SHOT at the Pats goal, which resulted in a wide ball. Pats introduced 11 subs in the second half to rest key players for their final group tie with Mullingar next week. The second half saw Pats starting to take their points with them scoring 15 in all, alongside 4 goals.
Finnerty got some fabulous points in the second half. Defenders Dillon, Shane McInery and Larry Morgan and Adam Ryan got in on the scoring act. Midfielder Daire Finnegan was told by his mentors to "Stay back, don't congest the forward line", which he did but also managed to get a point.
This was an all round good performance from the young lads of Pats, showing what they can do. Athlone did give the game what they could but they simply had no answer to the cause and were unlucky to concede so much.
This is Navan's school third win in 4 games now which should be enough to register a place in the semi-finals of the North Leinster for the first time since 2011, which was also the last time a Pat's juvenile team went all the way to be crowned Kings of Leinster.
They would feel slightly confident about the competition now, and speaking to full-back Oisin Corrigan after the game, he said "I reckon if we get to play the Marist Athlone again and we play like that, we will really put it up to them". Marist Athlone defeated Pats two weeks ago and the lads would really love some revenge, which will hopefully come in a North-Leinster Final.
St Pat's : Joey Moore, Gerard Dillon (0-1), OisinCorrigan, Ruairí Searle (1-0), Shane McInery (0-1), Adam Ryan, Larry Morgan, Cian McBride, DaireFinnegan (0-1), Matthew Reilly (0-1), Padraig Finnerty(1-4), Dillon Morgan (2-1), Dillon Keating (1-2), Craig Munnelly (1-2), Aaron Lynch (3-2). Subs: Jack Timmons (1-1), A Mulvaney, Jonathon McDonagh, CillianGormely, Mark McFadden, Keith Curtis, P.Quinn, Dermot Kelly (0-1), Rhín McGinnertaí, Peter Swan, EoinGough (1-2)
