Dunshaughlin 4-12    Bective 1-5

Dunshaughlin secured a quarter final spot and top place in Group C with a win over Bective on Saturday evening in Dunsany.

Heavy rain all day ended about 10 minutes after Ciaran Flynn threw the ball in. In the early stages Bective seemed to adapt better to Flynn’s refereeing style of letting the game flow and took an early lead when Sean Keating kicked a point in the 2nd minute into the wind and rain.

Bective kept Dunshaughlin scoreless until the 13th minute when Aaron Murphy scored a point from a tight angle. Murphy gave Dunshaughlin the lead two minutes later with another well taken point, a lead Dunshaughlin never relinquished. As the rain cleared and the sky brightened it invigorated the Dunshaughlin lads and in a four-minute spell from the 16th minute Dunshaughlin added four more points, all from play, two each from Matthew Moyles & Luke Mitchell. In the space of eight minutes the boys in Black & Amber had scored seven unanswered points which was greatly helped in no small part by the hardworking half forward duo of John McDonagh and Ruairi Kinsella, out around the forty-five who were among the main cogs of the supply line. Danny Quinn who was playing his first game of the year at midfield, was really impressive and looked like he had played that position all his life. Dunshaughlin captain Niall Murphy was excellent and looked fast & lively, if it wasn’t for his shaved head, he could easily have been mistaken for any of the Dunshaughlin teenagers on the pitch.

Bective did reduce Dunshaughlin’s lead to four points with points in the 21st (Mark Dowdall) and in the 24th minute (Sean Keating) but Dunshaughlin put paid to any idea of a Boyne sider’s comeback with an Aaron Murphy goal in the 27th minute, followed a minute later by a pointed free from Mitchell to leave the half time score 1-8 to 0-3. Conor Duke another of Dunshaughlin’s wing forwards worked hard throughout and was involved in a lot of the team scores.

Bective had the wind behind them for the 2nd half but unfortunately for them as the evening went on, the wind weakened and by games end there was hardly even a breeze. Bective did score the first point of the 2nd half, less than a minute after the throw-in, but they didn’t score again until the 55th minute.

Dunshaughlin’s first score of the 2nd half was a goal scored by Conor Gray who hit the back of the net after a surging run through the Bective defence, Gray was also doing well at midfield making some wonderful catches. Wing backs Ciaran McCarrick and Charlie O’ Connor were starving the Bective half forward line of any procession. Four minutes after the 2nd goal, Mitchell bagged a 3rd goal for Dunshaughlin putting Dunshaughlin into a thirteen- point lead with twenty minutes to go. Dunshaughlin introduced Fursey Blake who was returning after been out for a long period with an injury, he got on the ball quite a bit and didn’t put a foot wrong during his twenty-minute spell on the field. In that last twenty minutes of the game Dunshaughlin scored a further 1-4, the points from Murphy, Mitchell (2) & Kinsella, the goal from Charlie O’ Connor who took it well even though he was under pressure from two Bective defenders. Bective scored 1-1 in the last five minutes, the goal in the 58th minute, way too late to cause any concern for Dunshaughlin. Goalkeeper Adam McDermott dealt very confidentially with any Bective threats and made one excellent save and could not be faulted for the goal. The full back line was on top for almost the entire game and did very well especially in the first half when Bective were most dangerous. 

Dunshaughlin maintained their good form in the Intermediate Championship and despite the winning margin will be well aware of the very tough challenges ahead as they now enter into the knock-out stages. This was Bective’s last championship game of 2022 as they needed to win it to reach the Quarter Finals and were already clear of relegation even before this encounter. The Quarter Final Draw takes place on Monday night where Dunshaughlin will meet a 2nd place team from one of the other three groups. Those Quarter Final games are scheduled to be played the weekend after next.

Dunshaughlin scorers: Luke Mitchell 1-6 (2f), Aaron Murphy 1-3, Conor Gray 1-0, Charlie O’ Connor 1-0, Matthew Moyles 0-2, Ruairi Kinsella 0-1.

Dunshaughlin: Adam McDermott, Oisin Foley, Alastar Doyle, Niall Byrne, Ciaran McCarrick, Niall Murphy, Charlie O'Connor, Danny Quinn, Conor Gray, Mathew Moyles, John McDonagh, Ruairi Kinsella, Conor Duke, Aaron Murphy, Mathew Costello, Luke Mitchell. Subs: Fursey Blake for Quinn (42nd)

 

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