Football

MacRory and MacLarnon winners in action

Danske Bank MacRory Cup: Tuesday Nov 13 at 2.30pm

Aghagallon: St Ronan’s, Lurgan v St Mary’s CBGS, Belfast

Dunmoyle: Holy Trinity, Cookstown v St Macartan’s, Monaghan

THERE is plenty of action in the Danske Bank MacRory Cup this week which involve both the MacRory and MacLarnon winners from last season.

Champions St Ronan’s, Lurgan had a disappointing opening game in their group and they fell to a five points’ defeat against Omagh CBS.

The main reason was that they got off to a poor start and trailed by 3-4 to 0-4 at the break.

In the second half they were a much improved side playing with confidence and created late goal opportunities that might well have resulted in them winning the points.

Micky Donnelly and his management team will have been happy with that second half performance and they will be looking to get a win under their belts in Aghagallon today.

St Mary’s CBGS had a poor outing against their Magheafelt namesakes last Thursday and it will be extremely difficult to lift them for a game against the holders.

So it could be another heavy defeat for the Glen Road side.

Last Tuesday Holy Trinity, Cookstown announced their arrival on the MacRory stage with a confident display to see off St Patrick’s Cavan and they now face St Macartan’s, Monaghan who haven’t played a game yet, due to Maghera’s hurling commitments.

Everything went well for them; there was a gale-force wind which they used in the opening half to build up a strong interval lead and then Tiarnan Mackle benefited from a poor kick-out to fire home the only goal of the game, two minutes into the second half.

That victory will have done Cookstown’s confidence the world of good and they will look to build on it against a Sem side that is coming into the competition fairly cold.

Gavin McPhillips, Conor McCrystal, James Clerkin and Sean Treanor will know what is expected at this level as they were all part of last year’s team that defeated St Patrick’s, Academy in a play-off, but couldn’t push on.

St Macartan’s have other players with inter-county under-age experience like Karl Gallagher, Lochlainn Power, Michael Meehan and Chrissy Flood and, like Cookstown last week, they will look to get a good start to the game.

It will probably be a different type of game for Holy Trinity than their opener when they had to defend a big lead for the second half, but with players such as Tarlach Quinn, the Mulgrew brothers, Eoin Gallagher and Thomas Mackle around they can add to their opening day victory.

Danske Bank MacRory Cup tables

Group A

Pl W D L Pts Score diff

St Colman’s Newry 2 1 1 0 3 2

St Patrick’s Dungannon 2 1 0 1 2 1

St Michael’s Enniskillen 1 0 1 0 1 0

Abbey CBS 1 0 0 1 0 -3

Group B

Pl W D L Pts Score diff

Holy Trinity Cookstown 1 1 0 0 2 6

St Patrick’s Maghera

St Macartan’s Monaghan

St Patrick’s Cavan 1 0 0 1 0 -6

Group C

Pl W D L Pts Score diff

St Mary’s Magherafelt 1 1 0 0 2 20

Omagh CBS 1 1 0 0 2 5

St Ronan’s Lurgan 1 0 0 1 0 -5

St Mary’s CBGS Belfast 1 0 0 1 0 -20

Group D

Pl W D L Pts Score diff

St Patrick’s Armagh 1 1 0 0 2 14

St Eunan’s Letterkenny 1 1 0 0 2 3

Patrician Carrickmacross 1 0 0 1 0 -3

St Paul’s Bessbrook 1 0 0 1 0 -14