Seneschalstown 1-12 St. Colmcille’s 2-15

Seneschalstown went down to St. Colmcille’s in the opening round of the JMB Sportsfields Feis Cup in Fr. Tully Park on Saturday evening in both teams first competitive outing of 2025. It was also the first competitive game under the new rule enhancements proposed by the FRC so those in attendance were hoping that the game would reflect the high scoring encounters over the previous two weekends in the National Football League, and for the time of year few could have complained of the fare served up.

It was something of a new dawn for the home side, with David Hosie back in charge for his second spell and a raft of younger players lining out for the first time, with five adult first team debuts in the starting 15 and another off the bench left Seneschalstown shorn of lots of experience with only four players featuring from the final game in the Senior Football Championship in 2024.

It was one of those four, Alan Mulvany who opened the scoring with a close range free for Seneschalstown in the third minute but the visitors enjoyed a productive opening quarter kicking the next four points in a row to open up a three point gap. Just as the fifteen minute mark passed however, Seneschalstown started to gain a foothold in the game. Eoin Finnegan notched up Seneschalstown’s second point of the hour and 2024 Minor Collie Scanlon followed this up immediately with a fine effort from out on the right as Seneschalstown benefitted from some quick thinking with the new ‘solo and go’ rule.

Another bit of slick attacking play moments later set up Seneschalstown’s goal as Éamon Finnegan did well along the endline to slip a hand pass to his older brother and Eoin made no mistake with a composed finish rolling the ball into the net. The lead was increased the three points in the 17th minute when another of last years Minor winners Cian Hosie kicked his first point from a left footed free.

St. Colmcille’s broke the Seneschalstown momentum briefly with a point but straight from Jamie Norris’ long kickout, Seneschalstown transitioned quickly up the pitch with Alan Mulvany tagging on his second point of the hour and his first from play.

The Seasiders though struck for a goal of their own on 20 minutes as they seemed to regain the initiative and went in ahead at the end of a very entertaining opening half after they added two further scores, Seneschalstown’s only other point was a Mulvany free in between those scores for the East Meath outfit. The scoreboard read 1-07 to 1-06 at the half-time.

St. Colmcille’s took charge of the first 10 minutes of the second half kicking three points on the trot to move four ahead and once more before Cathal Hickey fired over from close range for Seneschalstown.   The only two pointer of the night arrived on 44 minutes and it went the way of the Cilles from a central position. There was six points between the sides by the time Seneschalstown scored again in the 48th minute which came from the boot of Cian Hosie from a tight angle. Cathal Hickey won the resultant kickout and after doing well to create the space for himself split the uprights to back it up with another Seneschalstown score.

With nine minutes left however, St. Colmcille’s appeared to kill the Seneschalstown challenge with their second goal but the home side battled gamely for the remainder of the game.   Seneschlatown’s hard work up the pitch resulted in a couple of frees that were put over by Cian Hosie and the other point came from Alan Mulvany following a turnover further out the field.

Despite the six point defeat, Seneschalstown can take plenty of positives from the game but must recover quickly before taking on Ratoath on Thursday evening.

Seneschalstown: Jamie Norris, Mattie Cowley, Danny Waters, Jack McDonnell, Collie Scanlon (0-01), Cormac Carolan, Liam Dillon, Cathal Hickey (0-02), Ronan Conneely, Alan Mulvany (0-04, 2fs), Cian Hosie (0-04, 3fs), Bradley Kirwan, Éamon Finnegan, Eoin Finnegan (1-01), Joey Moore.

Subs Used: Seán Davis, Aran Carey, Conor McDonnell

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