Caragh too hot for The House
AULD SHEBEEN ATHY IFC PRELIMINARY ROUND
CARAGH 1-10
TWO MILE HOUSE 0-9
Daire Walsh at Manguard Plus Hawkfield
A strong first half made all the difference for Caragh at Manguard Plus Hawkfield on Saturday when they overcame a stern challenge from Two Mile House to progress into the winners’ section of the Kildare Intermediate Football Championship.
At the midway point of this preliminary round affair, the Prosperous-based outfit were six points in front (1-7 to 0-4). The scoring prowess of inside forward Darragh Swords was proving crucial, while Dan Lynam’s 12th-minute goal also aided their cause in a major way.
As anticipated, there was a kick in Two Mile House on the resumption with Aidan Casey and Caomhan Doolan showing well at times in attack. Their deficit had been reduced to just three points at one stage in the second period, but Caragh had enough in reserve to claim the spoils on the day.
Despite coming out on top, Caragh didn’t always have it all their own way and fell two points adrift inside the opening three minutes of the contest. Having broken the deadlock off a free, Casey repeated the trick moments later to put Two Mile House into the driving seat.
Caragh suffered a set-back during the early exchanges when Eoghan Garry was sent to the sin-bin for a foul on Mark Sherry.
Off a close-range free in the sixth-minute, Eoghan O’Haire found the target to get his side up and running.
Clear-cut opportunities from open play were initially few and far between, but the game subsequently sprung into life. At the end of a superb move, Lynam jinked past opposition netminder Didier Cordonnier before firing into an empty net.
This boosted the confidence levels of Caragh, who quickly followed up with a Swords free and an additional point from Lynam’s midfield partner Kevin Connors. Swords also fly-kicked over the bar off an exquisite Ryan Burke pass, before Two Mile House finally responded with a superb individual effort by inter-county regular Chris Healy.
The Harristown Common’s side were hoping to settle as a result of this score, but instead it was Caragh who pushed forward. O’Haire and Swords displayed their unerring accuracy when converting frees in the 19th and 25th minutes respectively.
While they also lost Kevin Campbell to a black card, traded scores between Casey and Lynam – capitalising on excellent work by defenders Austin Nevin and Mattie McNally – meant Caragh were in a powerful position on the resumption.
It proved to be a tentative start to the second half and it took all of eight minutes for the next score to arrive. It was Swords who once again dissected the uprights off his trusty right boot to leave Caragh on the brink of a comfortable success.
In the final-quarter, further momentum was gathered with centre-field partners Tony O’Connor and Jack Collins raising white flags to supplement a second from Doolan.
Scorers: Caragh: Darragh Swords 0-5 (3f), Dan Lynam 1-1, Eoghan O’Haire 0-2 (2f), Kevin Connor, Ryan Burke 0-1 each.
Two Mile House: Aidan Casey 0-3 (3f), Caomhan Doolan 0-2, Tony O’Connor, Jack Collins, Chris Healy, Will Purcell 0-1 each.
CARAGH: Lorcan Behan; Conor Murphy, Eoghan Garry, Austin Nevin; Mattie McNally, Paul Dockery, Daniel Murray; Kevin Connor, Dan Lynam; Cathal McKennedy, Kevin Campbell, Ryan Burke; Darragh Swords, Eoghan O’Haire, Joe Barrett. Subs: Kevin Dempsey for Barrett (55).
TWO MILE HOUSE: Didier Cordonnier; Andrew May, Nathan Sherry, David Hanley; Kevin O’Leary, Jamie Gaire, William Burke; Tony O’Connor, Jack Collins; Adam Conneely, Chris Healy, Caomhan Doolan; Aidan Casey, Mark Sherry, Liam Coleman. Subs: Will Purcell for Coleman, Brian Collins for Hanley (both half-time).
REFEREE: Lee Moore.