SIGERSON Cup champions University of Galway made a solid start to this year’s competition by overcoming Maynooth University in Dangan last night, but the Kildare side were far more competitive than the final score of 3-10 to 1-6 suggested, and will live to regret a plethora of missed goal chances, particularly in the first half when they played with the aid of the strong breeze and driving rain.
A scrappy goal from Cathal Sweeney opened the scoring in the best possible fashion from the hosts’ perspective, but Maynooth’s powerful running caused the UG defence plenty of problems, with Darragh Kirwan failing to hit the target with two gilt-edged goal chances while Rúairí Kinsella crashed another powerful shot off the Galway crossbar.
Roscommon senior panellist Conor Carroll had to be sharp on a couple of occasions for the Galway students, but at the other end of the pitch they were far more efficient, with Patrick O’Donnell rifling in a second goal to put them eight points to the good at the break, with the wind to come in the second half.
Maynooth’s physical power remained a threat throughout and this was seen to good effect when Darragh Kirwan leapt to claim a high delivery from his Naas club colleague Paddy McDermott, slamming the ball to the net with 44 minutes gone.
However, University of Galway continued to knock over enough scores to preserve their lead, with Galway county stars Matthew Tierney, Cian Monaghan and Paul Kelly all on the mark before Tomo Culhane rounded off a solid performance with an opportunist goal in stoppage time.
In the other contest played out west, efficiency was the key for ATU Sligo as they seized their goal chances to pick up a 4-6 to 0-12 win over MTU Kerry.
Tony Brosnan was arguably the star of the show on the night at the campus field in Ballinode as he shot five points, including three in the first half to cancel out the first of Jack Davitt’s two goals, leaving it level at the break, 1-3 to 0-6.
However with three minutes gone in the second half, the Sligo students were in the driving seat. Home town player Joe Keaney found the Kerry students’ net within the first minute, and that was followed up with Davitt’s second green flag from the penalty spot two minutes later.
Luke Jennings in the Sligo goal made a couple of key interventions to ensure that MTU Kerry never got the goal they needed, and even as they chipped away at the lead through points from Brosnan and Anthony Darmody, a fourth goal, this time from Offaly’s Aaron Kelleghan, confirmed the win.
While UL reached last year’s final, the absence of David Clifford (among others) from that team was expected to see them drop back into the pack, but they stepped up with a huge win over UCC, 2-7 to 0-10.
Goals in either half from Paul Matthews and Paul Walsh were the key scores as UCC burst out of the blocks to lead by 0-5 to 0-1 despite playing into the teeth of the wind at the Mardyke in Cork, but Matthews’ excellent goal levelled matters after 20 minutes and they hit the front by the break thanks to a late Dylan Geaney point.
Defensively, UL were superb in the second half, largely restricting UCC to scores from frees, while Leitrim’s Paul Keaney followed up a solid performance in the FBD league last Friday night with four points from midfield for the Limerick side here.
That kept them in the hunt until the 54th minute when James McCarthy was fouled, Dylan Foley saved Paul Walsh’s penalty but the Kerryman followed up to find the net with the rebound for the match-winning score.
Finally, at Grangegorman, Kevin O’Callaghan kicked 1-2, Shane Cunnae struck 0-3 and Mark Lavin hit four points for TU Dublin as they overcame last year’s Trench Cup winners, ATU Galway, by 1-13 to 0-9.
