A DRAW FOR St Eunan’s College, Letterkenny, in Killyclogher today against Holy Trinty Cookstown was enough to seal top spot in Group B of the Treanor Cup (Ulster Colleges U-15½).
St Eunan’s College, Letterkenny 2-8 Holy Trinity Cookstown 1-11
A perfect setting for this top of the table clash, with the winners set to top group B.
First score for the Letterkenny side – managed by Chris Carr and Colm McFadden – was a goal after an excellent run down the centre from captain and leader Conor McKinney, who powered the ball to the back of the Cookstown net.
Stray passing and poor decision making at times, held the College back from building on this dream start.
However, Cookstown got a goal down the other end straight away after from an unfortunate slip by one of the Eunan’s defenders. This levelled the game up early on.
Cookstown added further points in the sixth, ninth, 12th and 15th minutes to take an early advantage. St Eunan’s College were struggling with their physicality and direct running. A free from Pauric McGettigan and a Conor O’Donnell effort kept St Eunan’s College in touch.
At this stage St Eunan’s College side had settled down and begin to take a hold of the game with Oisin Cassidy, Shane O’Donnell and and the Eunan’s defenders forcing the Cookstown boys into mistakes.
The Cookstown side did not score for the remaining 15 minutes of the half even with the help of a strong breeze.
St Eunan’s College had two great goal chances but the Cookstown keeper pulled off vital saves to keep his side in the contest.
In the 22nd minute Shane O Donnell scored a great individual goal and added a further point on the stroke of half time for the St Eunan’s College team to hold a two-point lead at the break on a score line of 2-3 ti 1-4.
The second half really was end to end stuff. A Conor O’Donnell free extended the lead to three points in the 32nd minute. Cookstown added three of their own – two from frees to level things up 10 minutes into the half. Three further scores had the game all tied up in the 43rd minute of the half.
St Eunan’s College really had to dig deep and displayed great teamwork and great battling characteristics to get level.
Both sides traded points in the next 10-minute spell, once again Eunan’s guilty of missing some guilt edged goal chances which would of made the game more comfortable.
Further points from Dylan Doogan and a fine effort under pressure from Cormac Finn looked to have given the
College side the victory. But with nearly four minutes injury time having passed the Cookstown boys levelled up.
Good displays from St Eunan’s College’s defence, with Conor McKinney, Pauric McGettigan and Shane O’Donnell the main threats in the forward line.
A point was enough for the College to remain in top spot and push Holy Trinity Cookstown down into second place. This qualifies the College for the knockout stages of this years competition.
St Eunan’s College topped the group with some fine football over the course of the three group games. They opened with a win over St Patrick’s College Armagh and then posted a victory over Aquina’s Belfast.
The quarter-final opponents will not be known-until early next week, which gives the St Eunan’s College boys a chance to fine tune a few parts of their game over the Easter holidays.
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