Cooney sparkles as Mills capture title

O’Callaghan’s Mills    9-15
Bodyke                        5-9
A contribution of 7-9 from Gary Cooney inspired O’Callaghan’s Mills to victory in the U-14C Championship final at Cusack Park on Saturday.

Cooney was the standout player in this high-scoring final between the neighbouring clubs, who joined forced to play in the A championship in which they are unbeaten and are through to the semi-final this Friday.

Cooney struck in the first minute for the opening goal and he quickly added a brace of points before Bodyke’s star, Ian Murray, had his side’s first goal. By the mid-point of the half the winners were 2-7 to 1-1 ahead. Bodyke hit their best spell and goals from Peter Flower helped them draw level at 3-5 to 2-8 with the half-time whistle approaching.

Cooney finished the half strongly and hit 2-1 before the short whistle to put his side 4-9 to 3-5 in front at the break. He started the second half with another goal but like scores from Ian Murray and Liam O’Donnell kept Bodyke’s hopes alive.

It was 6-11 to 5-9 with 10 minutes to play when a brace of Cooney goals killed off Bodyke’s hopes of causing a surprise and the winners went on to seal a comfortable win.

Cooney was outstanding throughout as his contribution of 7-9 indicates. Ben McLoughlin and Sean McInerney were others to impress for the winners while Cian Minogue, Ian Murray, Liam O’Donnell and Sean Browne did well for Bodyke.

After the game, Bord na nÓg chairman Martin Reynolds presented the trophy to the winning captain, Killian Nugent.

O’Callaghan’s Mills: Killian Nugent; Rory McNamara, Sean Murphy; Ronan Kelly, Tom Lynch, Michael Cotter; Ben McLoughlin (1-3), Alan O’Dea; Conor McManus, Gary Cooney (7-9), Pádraig O’Riordan; Sean McInerney (1-2) James Downing (0-1).
Subs: Stephen Donnellan for McManus, Jeffrey McMahon for O’Riordan, John O’Donnell for R Kelly, Henry McGrath for O’Dea, Daniel Madden for McInerney and Keith Donnellan for McInerney.
Bodyke: Sean Browne; Sean Perril, Ciarán Hickey; Cathal Doyle, Oran Treacy, Fionn Slattery; Oisín Slattery, Peter Flower (2-0); Paul Kelleher, Ian Murray (2-3), Jack Minogue; Liam O’Donnell (1-4), Cian Minogue (0-2).
Subs: Conor Whelan for F Slattery and Jack Devanney for Murray (inj).
Referee: Flan O’Reilly, Cratloe.

Broadford 8-11
Éire Óg 3-3
Broadford won the U-14C shield at Kilkishen on Saturday evening. Playing with a strong wind in the first half, they got off to a great start with two goals from Ronan Doyle and Eoin Powell within the first 10 minutes. Eoin Powell put in a great game, scoring 3-2 over the hour.

Some great saves from the Éire Óg goalkeeper Dylan Nugent and a goal from Tom Keating brought them back into the game. Goals from Cian Crimmins and team captain Jack Dillon just before half-time put Broadford 4-6 to 1-1 ahead. Broadford started the second half very strongly and got three more goals within this first 15 minutes to put the game out of the reach of Éire Óg.

To their credit, Éire Óg never gave up and scored two goals from Oran
Slattery and Johnny Ryan.

A great performance from a very skilful Broadford team meant the result was never in doubt from very early on. Jack Dillon, who played a captain’s part by scoring 2-7, received the Jason Brogan memorial shield from Bord na nÓg’s Joe Pender.

Broadford: JC McMahon; Sean Vaughan, James Vaughan; Conor Phelan, Darragh Whelan, Paddy Donnellan; Jack Dillon, Diarmuid Walsh; Ronan Doyle, Dylan McMahon, Cian Mulqueen; Eoin Powell, Cian Crimmins.
Subs: Niall O’Brien, Calvin O’Dwyer, Daren McNamara, Shane Tuite, James Hannon and Jack Ward-Murphy.
Éire Óg: Dylan Nugent; Jack O’Shaughnessy, Paddy Honan; Liam McMahon, Jack Fleming, Rory Brennan; Diarmuid Fitzgerald, Gavin Cooney; Brian Devitt, Tom Keating, Paul Martin; Adrian Forde, Oran Slattery.
Subs: Gary Stack, Barry Cotter, Adam Gleeson, Fionn Nolan, Ian Sheehan, David Wust, Johnny Ryan, Mark Fitzgerald, Sean Doherty, Robbie Woods and Patrick McDaid.