Gaeil Colmcille 1-11
Wolfe Tones 0-11

Gaeil Colmcille stunned Wolfe Tones with a late Ryan Farnham goal to take both points in this entertaining Meath Senior Football Championship opening round game at Athboy.

Neighbours Kells and Wolfe Tones faced off in the opening game in Group 'A' of the Meath Senior Football Championship of 2017. 10 days ago Wolfe Tones defeated Gaeil Colmcille 2-15 to 1-9 in the All County A Football League.

It was the Kells men that got off to the better start going two points up within the first five minutes with scores from Seamus Mattimoe and Brian Hanlon. It could've been a lot better though for Kells when two great goal chances went a begging, first one from Mattimoe who under pressure pulled his shot wide and a second from Fionn Reilly who's shot was brilliantly saved by Tones keeper Trevor Browne. 

On 16 minutes a Hanlon score seemed to annoy Browne who felt that the ball went wide and an exchange of words with the umpire led to him getting a straight red card. 

At the time the score was 0-5 to 0-02 to Kells but the red card seemed to lift the Tones men as they went on to score the next four points leaving them 0-6 to 0-5 up at half time. 

In a tight second half both sides traded points and there was never more than a point between the teams. Kells scores seemed harder to come by but when they did come there were some excellent ones from Hanlon, Oisin Reilly and the tireless Martin Barrett. 

The sides were level when blood sub Ryan Farnham came on for Oisin Reilly in the 60th minute. He gathered the ball out on the left sideline and after some good interplay among the Kells forwards the ball landed back with Farnham 14 yards from goal and he made no mistake firing his shot into the bottom left-hand corner. 

Straight after the goal Reilly was bandaged up and brought back on as Farnham left the pitch as the hero after his two minute appearance. His late goal fired Gaeil Colmcille top of Group 'A' alongside Donaghmore/Ashbourne who also had a three point win over Rathkenny in Pairc Tailteann.

Gaeil Colmcille: J Carry Lynch, C Ferguson, B Smith, J Quigley, C Riordan, B Tormay, J Reilly, L Ferguson, M Foley, S Mattimoe (0-4), S Curran, F Reilly, O Reilly (0-2), B Hanlon (0-4), M Barrett (0-1). Subs: C Keegan for Foley, R Farnham (1-0) for O Reilly (blood sub)

Wolfe Tones: Trevor Browne; Niall O'Reilly (0-1), Eoghan Harrington, Shane Glynn, Niall McLoughlin, Dan O'Neill (0-1), Conor Sheppard, Stephen Corrigan, Mark Coleman, Eanna Harrington, Stephen Sheppard, Eanna O'Kelly-Lynch; Padraig Diamond, Tomas O'Reilly (0-3), Cian Ward (0-5). Subs - Conor Brennan for Glynn, Fiachra Ward (0-1) for Sheppard, Sheppard for C Sheppard.

Referee David Gough

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