Sigerson Cup round-up: DCU and UCC into last four
February 18, 2010Paddy Andrews and David Kelly combined for 0-8 to sink holders Cork IT and send DCU into the semi-finals yesterday at Glasnevin.
The Cork students took the opening lead through Kerry ace Barry John Walsh, but DCU looked the shaper side from the start and went into the lead with points from Cathal Cregg, Johnny Cooper and the accurate Kelly.
Both sides exchanged scores for 15 minutes after that, with Daniel Goulding bagging a brace for the visitors, but it was the home side that edged matters by 0-7 to 0-5 at half-time, after Andrews and Brian Sheridan (free) lashed over a point each.
Paul Flynn, who was superb throughout, and Colm O'Neill exchanged early second-half points, before DCU put their foot on the throttle and opened up a five-point lead by the 43-minute mark via points from Andrews (2) and Kelly.
CIT relied on their Cork duo Goulding and Kerrigan to pull them back into the game, but their opponents quickly pushed the difference back to six and by the time Paul Kerrigan was issued a straight red card following an off-the-ball incident with Philip McMahon, there was no coming back for the visitors.
NUI Maynooth produced the shock of the quarter-finals when they edged out former champions UUJ by 2-12 to 1-13 at the Jordanstown Complex.
It all looked to be going according to plan for the hosts, as they opened up a 0-5 to nothing lead in the first 12 minutes, but they would live to rue missed goal chances from Jason McAnulla and Conor McManus after that.
By the interval UUJ had saw their lead significantly reduced by their opponents, who had only registered their first score 20 minutes in when Cian Mullins sent one over. Two minutes later a mistake from the UUJ 'keeper allowed David Quinn to hit the back of the net the margin was reduced to 0-9 to 1-3 at half-time.
Maynooth's tails were up after the restart and they soon levelled through the points of Quinn, Michael Newman and Niall Coyne. Points were exchanged on two occasions, before the visitors took their first lead with three minutes to go, after Nigel Dunne got himself dragged down in the UUJ square and he coolly dispatched the resultant penalty to the net.
Caolan Boyle grabbed a late goal for the Belfast students, but it wasn't enough as Maynooth held out for a memorable victory to book a semi-final meeting with DCU.
UCC held off a brave GMIT side to progress through to the last four on a 0-14 to 0-10 score-line.
The Cork outfit had started the game in a positive fashion and led by four points with 20 minutes gone, with Barry O'Driscoll leading the charge. GMIT recovered well though and showed that they could pick off scores of their own on the latter stages of the half, as Stephen Griffin, Justin Burke and Martin Coady helped close the gap to two at half-tie.
UCC started well again when the ball was thrown-in for the second-half, as Daithi Casey, the excellent John Buckley and Sean Kiely all raised white flags to push their team's lead back to four, and despite the efforts of the Galway students that's what the final difference would stand at come the full-time whistle.
In Ballyforan, Cavan's Raymond Galligan continued his superb form by kicking seven points to help put Sligo IT to the sword by 1-9 to 1-8 and send Athlone IT into a semi-final meeting with UCC.
The game had been tight throughout, with the teams going in level on 0-3 apiece at the interval, as Galligan exchanged scores with Sligo's full-forwards.
David Givney hit struck over a fine point to put his team back in front, but it was soon cancelled-out by John Reynolds' 37th minute goal, before Athlone hit three unanswered points through David Egan and Galligan (2).
Mayo's Alan Freeman and Stephen Henry struck over points for the young men in black to reduce their arrears, but Galligan was on hand with another brace to send Athlone into the semi-final, despite an injury-time goal from his fellow county man Givney. Tweet
