Danske Bank Casement Cup final
St Patrick’s, Keady 3-11 Rathmore Grammar 2-12
ST Patrick’s, Keady retained the Danske Bank Casement Cup by edging out Rathmore Grammar in a repeat of last year’s final at Mid Ulster Sports Arena in Cookstown.
But they needed a late goal from James Hamilton to hold off a strong rally from the west Belfast side.
The opening quarter was an even enough contest and ended on 0-4 each, with Ronan Taylor and Chris Robb hitting two each for Rathmore and Keady’s total spread across four players.
Charlie Baxtor grabbed the opening goal for the Armagh school after 17 minutes. Although Robb pulled it back to a single point that remained between the teams over the next 10 minutes, Keady turned over a break from defence and moved the sliotar to James Hamilton, who held off his marker and fired across the goalie for an interval lead of 2-5 to 0-7.
Keady maintained that advantage for much of the second half until the 54th minute when Joe Logan fired home a goal for Rathmore.
Hamilton responded with his second goal to open the gap to four points again. However, Robb converted a penalty with two minutes to go and it seemed that the game might end in a draw until Caoimhín Mone popped up for a score in added time.
St Patrick’s J Hamilton 2-2; C Mone 0-5; C Baxter 1-1; K O’Hara, P Grimes & C Feeney 0-1 each
Rathmore C Robb 1-8; J Logan 1-1; R Taylor 0-2; D McGurk 0-1
