Cortown 3-09 Skryne 1-09

As well as bouncing back from a midweek defeat to Slane, Cortown boosted their Semi-Final prospects with an excellent victory over Skryne on Sunday morning at the North Meath Fortress.

A depleted Cortown outfit made a slow start to proceedings with the Tara men dominating the early exchanges. Last year's County Under 20 Oisin Keogh was causing a real nuisance of himself along with the pace and craft of the supporting act. This enabled the visitors to open up a 1-3 to 0-1 advantage with the sole riposte coming in the form of Davy Rispin.

It seemed to be just the fillip for Martin McGovern's men as Luca Brady added a second point, this time a big booming effort. From the resulting kickout, the Skryne netminder restart was caught by Davy Rispin who spotted the Goalkeeper off his line and pinged into the net from 35 metres.

Clearly rattled, Skryne stopped the rot with a free but the respite was temporary because Hugh Staunton soon added a second major of the hosts. This time Brady and the hardworking Aaron Smith laid the foundations and the classy midfielder applied a pinpoint finish to the back of the net to give Cortown the lead for the first time.

Buoyed by the quickfire double, Staunton and an improvised scooped effort Luke Carberry who was on the mark at a point-to-point last weekend extended the Cortown advantage to two approaching the break. Skryne almost landed a sucker-punch on the stroke of half time but Colm McGearty delivered a big stop when called upon to leave Cortown ahead 2-04 to 1-05.

The midfield masterclass from Staunton and Brady was again to the fore early in the second period with both registering white flags to keep the men in yellow firmly in the ascendancy.

The plucky Skryne men did not go away with Keogh narrowing the deficit with a couple of excellent scores. Rispin and Brady cancelled out the Skryne scores to reestablish a three-point buffer. Therefore, Ivor O'Halloran's fortuitous shot that dropped into the net was timely, not that it will have bothered the 44 year old soldier in the slightest.

The Cortown defence who struggled in the early stages repelled what was thrown at them in the final stages with McGearty and his back six all making sizable contributions to maintain the six-point lead to the finish. Somewhat fittingly, the superb Staunton closed the scoring with a terrific effort after playing a one-two with Ciaran Keating.

It was another gutsy and battling display for Cortown who leapfrog Navan O'Mahonys in the table and climb to fourth for the first time this season. Its Nobber next in the Reserve League before another showdown with Moynalty on Tuesday week.

Cortown: Colm McGearty; Barry Canning, Decky Clarke, Micky Costello; Kevin Muldoon, Charlie Smith, Ciaran Keating; Luca Brady (0-3), Hugh Staunton (1-3); Aaron Smith, Stevie Clarke, Ivor O'Halloran (1-0); Davy Rispin (1-2), Kevin McGuinness, Luke Carberry (0-1).

Subs: Anthony Boyle for Carberry, Conor Mulroe for A Smith.

Referee: Seamus O'Connor (Carnaross)

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