News Detail

Division 5 Team Beaten By The Downs
20-04-2017

St Lomans Mullingar 1.12 The Downs 4.19


On Saturday evening last St. Lomans travelled away to the league leaders The Downs, for the fourth-round Division 5 league match. The Blues fielded a very different team to the one that beat Castledaly in the previous round with only six of that team starting Saturdays game.


Having won the toss Enda Lambden elected to play with the advantage of a stiff breeze. St. Lomans duly raced into a 3-point lead with two scores coming from Dwayne Egerton and a nice point from Adam Lynch. The Downs soon roared back into contention to bring the game level and over the next fifteen minutes both sides exchanged points, with little to separate the teams. 

Midway through the first half The Downs broke through for a clear goal chance but an excellent save from Paul McGann denied them. However soon after McGann’s save The Downs did eventually rock the Blues with two goals in quick succession to leave them reeling. St Lomans kept plugging away to reduce the deficit and thanks to the hard graft of Cian Burke, Johnny Plunkett and Michael Gleeson further points came from Conor Matthews, Declan Colgan and the impressive Jack Tyrell. However just before half time The Downs scored a killer third goal leaving the halftime score 3-09 to 0-09.

 

St. Lomans introduced three substitutes at halftime with young Ryan Cleary making his debut, alongside two evergreens Kenny Maleady and Robbie Kenny, who were both playing their first game of 2017. The substitutions paid immediate dividends as within a few minutes Robbie had his name on the scoreboard with a well taken point from play and soon afterwards St Lomans raised the green flag when Ryan Cleary was on hand to fist the ball to the net after a blistering shot from Jack Tyrell had rebounded off The Downs goalkeeper. 


The Downs suddenly upped their game and began rattling off several well taken points. St Lomans were lucky to have two very experienced players in the full backline, Adam Carroll and Senan Russell, both who snuffed out several dangerous attacks from The Downs. With some legs beginning to tire St Lomans introduced two more substitutes, Robbie Cleary came on for the hardworking Stephen Sheridan and Gerry Farrell also made an introduction.

St Lomans never gave up but despite further scores from Mathews and Colgan, The Downs attacks were relentless and slowly but surely, they put the game out of reach with some very well taken scores and ended up deserved winners.


St. Lomans should not be too disappointed, it can be difficult to generate consistency when you consider that the Blues have now used more than 40 different players over the past 4 games and although Saturdays result was disappointing the performance certainly was not. 


Team: Paul McGann, Senan Russell, Adam Carroll, Sean Regan, Cian Burke, Michael Gleeson, Jack Tyrrell (0-1), Adam Lynch (0-2), Johnny Plunkett, Declan Colgan (0-2), Enda Lambden (C), Stephen Sheridan, Conor Matthews (0-4), Dwayne Egerton (0-2), Andrew McKenna.

Subs Used; Kenny Maleady, Robbie Kenny (0-1), Ryan Cleary (1-0), Gerry Farrell, Robbie Cleary.