Boardsmill 1-10 Oldcastle 0-10

Boardsmill hosted senior rivals Oldacastle in the 2nd round of the  Coca Cola senior championship. Oldcastle started as favorites, fresh from their win over Seneschalstown while Boardsmill entered the championship with some trepidation in the absence of their talisman Emma Troy .

This was a highly competitive game  which saw Oldcastle speedster Emma Healy  score 2 points in the first 3 minutes as the Boardsmill defense tried to sort out their match ups .  They were exposed in the 6th minute with Healy bearing down on goal only to be hauled down by the Boardsmill keeper. Cliona Murray took over in goal from her sister Eimear who was yellow carded and was relieved to see Aine Bennett pull her shot wide.

The Boardsmill squad

Laura Griffin scored the first of 4 free's from the restart . Griffin was in fine form and  soon carried well from defense to feed Laura Dempsey who curled over a fine point after 9 minutes.   The game settled into a fine contest and Oldcastle were later denied 2 goals by stand-in keeper Cliona Murray.

Back to 15 players after 14 minutes the south Meath outfit pushed on and took the lead with another Dempsey point. Soon thereafter Griffin and Laura Bagnall combined to put Ciara Ashe through on goal and she made no mistake from 6 yards .

Oldcastle's Bennett  and Sarah Reilly scored a point  apiece in the last 5 minutes of the half to leave the score 1.03 to 0.4 in favour of the home side after 30 minutes.

Boardsmill resumed control on the resumption with Griffin scoring 3 points from free's. Sarah Reilly pointed from a free on 37 minutes before Dempsey lofted over a long range point to leave 5 points between the teams . Oldcastle countered  bringing Brigetta Lynch forward  . Sarah Reilly  then recorded her 3rd  pointed free with 15 miutes left.

Because of a clash of colours Oldcastle wore the Ballinlough jerseys

Lynch was impressing up front and it took the cross bar and  2 amazing blocks from Cliona Murray and Michela Stellini to keep Lynch and Stephanie Caffrey at bay .  Back up the other end,  Laura Griffin  again carried well from defense and set up Ciara Ashe for a well worked score.

The impetus swung from side to side and Oldcastle recorded 3 pointed frees from Reilly to leave 2 points between the sides with 5 minutes of normal time remaining. Sarah Bagnall won  two important contests against Lynch in the dying minutes and marshaled the defense well all evening . Griffin and Dani O Sullivan set up Edel Guy for an important score before Oldcastle's Bennett and Laura Dempsey exchanged points in the final minutes.

There was only a single score between the teams 1.10 to 0.10 at the end . This game could have gone either way  and both teams look forward to the next round with some confidence.

Best for the winners were Cliona Murray , Laura Griffin Laura Dempsey Ciara Ashe and Sarah Bagnall while M Stellini  Laura Bagnall  and Aideen Guy made significant contributions.

Best for Oldcastle were   B Lynch and Sarah Reilly.

Boardsmill : E Murray C Murray  M Stellini  K Hannon, R Griffin A Guy S Bagnall, L Bagnall L Griffin (0.4) A Troy L Dempsey(0.4) D O Sullivan , S Kealey  C Ashe(1.1) E Guy(0.1)

Oldcastle scorers  S Lynch 0.6 Aine Bennett 0.2 E Reily 0.2

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