Oldcastle 2-13 Trim 1-8

Oldcastle booked their place in the semi final of this year's Intermediate championship with a fine win against Trim in Ballinlough on Sunday evening.

There was very little between the sides in the opening half, one which had the championship physicality and narrow margins for error. A Conor McHugh free on the fourth minute opened the scoring for the Oldcastle men but Trim answered by sending over the next three scores giving them a slight foothold after fifteen minutes. Oldcastle, however, created a number of attacks and eventually found their feet by sending over three points without reply to level the encounter - three well taken scores from Stephen Tierney and Paddy Gilsenan (2). The north Meath side were finding their rhythm as the half came to a close and raised the white flag for a fifth time, this time through a Jason Scully free. This left Oldcastle with the slight edge going in at the break with a half time score of 0-5 to 0-4 in favour of Oldcastle.

The first ten minutes of  the second half were as tense as the first, with both teams coming out of the blocks and neither getting a chance to pull away into a stronger lead - Scully raised the white flag for Oldcastle once again but Trim pegged them back by getting the next two scores to level the tie once more.

The Oldcastle half back contingent of Rory McHugh and CJ Healy further helped their side push on in terms of the scoreboard, Healy sending over a fine left footed effort and McHugh claiming two well taken individual efforts  to put his team into a two point lead.

The turning point of the match for Oldcastle came in the fiftieth minute when substitute Niall Mangan fed a driving counter attack to Paddy Gilsenan who weaved through the Trim defence and unselfishly laid it off to other substitute Ronan Maguire - he made no mistake and lashed the ball home into the bottom corner much to the delight of the strong Oldcastle support around the ground.

Oldcastle finally had the kind of lead they had been pushing for since the whistle went in the second half. With that, they became ruthless in punishing Trim's defence by sending over another two points from Maguire and a further Scully free. Oldcastle were not done there, as they put the final nail in the coffin by raising the green flag once more - this time through a fine finish from full forward Scully. 

Trim got a consolation goal in the final stages of the match but it was Oldcastle who would have the final say and send over the final two scores through Gilsenan and Scully.

Oldcastle will now play Curraha in the Intermediate championship semi final.

Oldcastle: Packie Kevin, Oran O'Reilly, Cian McPartland, Steven Lawless, Rory McHugh (0-2), Gerard Reidy, CJ Healy (0-1), Conor McHugh (0-1, 1f), Eoin Gilsenan, Darren Hawdon, Paddy Gilsenan (0-3), Robbie Smith, Robbie Farrelly, Jason Scully (1-4, 2f), Stephen Tierney (0-1). Subs used: Peter Monaghan for C McHugh, Niall Mangan for Farrelly, Ronan Farrelly for Smith, Ronan Maguire (1-1) for Tierney, Paddy Rahill for Healy, Keith Connell for Lawless

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