SEAN O'MAHONYS 1-7

ST MARYS 0-9

Sean O'Mahonys came from behind against St Marys in Ardee on Saturday evening to book their place in the knock-out stages of the Louth Senior Championship.

The reigning champions may not have been at their best over the hour, but they used all their experience and guile to come out on top in a game that really failed to produce the fireworks that many might have anticipated.

In the end it was a goal on 40 minutes from Conor Crawley that proved the difference between the teams in this Group 1 encounter.

In a repeat of the 2016 final, the Marys began like a team determined to set the record straight, and outplayed the Dundalk men for the opening quarter.

Dean Matthews set them on their way with an early free and although Conor Finnegan replied from a free, the Ardee men began to dominate.

Ronan Carroll, who was posing all sorts of problems at that stage, restored the lead before Mark Fay, Paudy Clarke and Alan Kirk followed up with points, before Stephen Fisher and Carroll traded scores to make it 0-6 to 0-2.

The Seans looked out of sorts at that stage but they managed to gather themselves and after restricting the space for the Marys attack, they began to show more of a threat themselves. Slowly but surely they clawed their way back into the game and with two points from Fisher and one from Keith McLaughlin they found themselves trailing by just 0-6 to 0-5 at half time.

There was little between the teams in the opening minutes of the second half but the O'Mahonys grabbed the initiative when a long ball from Finnegan was flicked home by Conor Crawley.

Although the Marys came back to level, the O'Mahonys always looked the more likely to prevail and Fisher made sure they did with what proved to be the winning point five minutes from the end.

SEAN O'MAHOYS: Seamus Quigley; Christopher O'Neill, Ronan Byrne, Michael Clarke; Keith McLaughlin 0-1, John O'Brien, Liam Dullaghan; Shane Brennan, Conor Martin; Conor Finnegan 0-2, Ben McLaughlin, Jonathan Connolly; Stephen Fisher 0-4, Conor Crawley 1-0, Stephen Kilcoyne. Subs: Barry Mackin for C Finnegan, Colin Finan for K McLaughlin.

ST MARYS: Peter Duffy; Brendan Matthews, Eamon Callaghan, Conor Keenan; Niall Eccles, Eimhin Keenan, John Bingham; Ronan Carroll 0-2, Robbie Leavy; Kian Moran, Darren Clarke 0-1, Mark Fay 0-1; Dean Matthews 0-1, Paudy Clarke 0-2, Alan Kirk 0-2. Subs: Barry McCoy for B Matthews, Jamie Rooney for A Kirk, Ryan Rooney for D Clarke.

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