St. Michaels 0-14 Syddan 1-04           

St. Michaels kept their best 'till last as they came, saw and conquered and were crowned Division 2A champions on Sunday afternoon in a wet and windy Drumconrath, whose grounds by the way were immaculately turned out. The St. Michaels lads won hands down all over the pitch and had too much quality in attack in the form of Shane McDonnell, Oran Meehan and Ciaran Lynch who between them accounted for all but three of the winners tally. PHOTOS                       

An excellent opening half performance from the winners, playing with the strong wind to their backs in front of a large crowd set the tone for this match as Shane McDonnell floated over an exceptional point after just 26 seconds, Oran Meehan followed before Felim O'Reilly made it 3 points to nil after six minutes. Syddan opened their account with a pointed free after eleven minutes. A good move involving McDonnell and Meehan resulted in the latter curling another minor between the posts at the end of the opening quarter.  

Syddan struggled to penetrate the tight marking St. Michaels defence and desperately needed scores as there was four points between the sides after 20 minutes with just one to their name but instead St. Michaels showed a ruthless touch by piling on the points, Brian O'Reilly collected a Syddan kick-out and went on a solo run into the opposing territory to split the posts with a fine effort, McDonnell followed with another effort from play. Syddan kept plugging away and they eventually broke through in the 22nd minute when they sent the St. Michaels net billowing giving 'keeper Darren O'Connell no chance but the winners response was swift and within seconds Cian McFadden had raised a white flag at the opposite end.

Ciaran Lynch (free) and McDonnell posted a point apiece for a 0-9 to 1-1 interval lead.

The second half was controlled by St. Michaels as their greater strength, football nous and conditioning saw them engineer a lot of space and time on the ball and restricted Syddan to just three points while they themselves went into cruise control with points coming from McDonnell (3) and Ciaran Lynch (2).
Trevor Bannon in his first year in charge can be very happy with his charges who put in a great team effort especially the defence who worked very hard and succeeded in keeping the Syddan forwards at bay and the middle third who covered the entire pitch and supplied their inside forwards with plenty of ammunition and they certainly made good use of it.  

St. Michaels team and scorers: Darren O'Connell; Christopher Drew, Ciaran O'Reilly, Harry Dunne; Daniel Murphy, Matthew Halpin, Brian O'Reilly (0-1); Sam Briody, J.B O'Reilly; Cian McFadden (0-1), Felim O'Reilly (0-1), Jakub Bidzinski; Oran Meehan (0-2), Shane McDonnell (0-6), Ciaran Lynch (0-3).                                                                                                                                                

Subs: David Lynch for McFadden (31), Mark Stafford for J.B. O'Reilly (50) Ben Reilly for D. Murphy (56), Paddy Fitzsimons for C. Lynch (59).                   

Referee: Joey Curley.                                                                               

Match report: Pascal Reilly PRO.                                                                           

                                                                            

                        

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