Clane’s inside men, the difference
JOE MALLON MOTORS SFC GROUP C, ROUND 3
CLANE 3-15
CONFEY 1-9
Daire Walsh at Manguard Plus, Hawkfield
Inside forwards Shane O’Sullivan and Brian McLoughlin combined for 2-9 at Hawkfield on Saturday as Clane rounded off their Kildare SFC Group C campaign with a convincing victory over Confey.
As a result the Conneff Park outfit will enter into a preliminary quarter-final against Group B’s third-place team, Athy.
It wasn’t entirely plain sailing on the day for Clane, who found themselves tied at 0-4 apiece at the first half water break.
David Slattery stretched Confey in front on 19 minutes, but it was to be their final point of the opening period. After gathering a direct ball inside, O’Sullivan clinically fired beyond the reach of Colin Heeney for the game’s opening goal. Three unanswered McLoughlin points followed, before centre half-back Robbie Phillips also split the posts to hand Clane a 1-8 to 0-5 interval cushion.
Clane proceeded to amass 1-4 without reply either side of the third-quarter mark and while the impressive James Gately rattled the Clane net it was not enough on the day.
Clane did end the contest with stoppage-time points from McLoughlin and Murphy.
Scorers: Clane: Shane O’Sullivan 2-3 (0-1 mark), Brian McLoughlin 0-6 (4 frees), Shane McCormack 1-0, Sam McCormack, Conor Murphy 0-2 each, Robbie Phillips, Jake Devey 0-1 each.
Confey: James Gately 1-7 (0-4 frees), Joe Kilbane, David Slattery 0-1 each.
CLANE: Cian Burke; Daniel Reilly, Eoin Naughton, Conor Walsh; Chris Byrne, Robbie Phillips, Shane McCormack; Sean Christanseen, Sam McCormack; Tadgh Montgomery, Danny Egan, Jake Devey; Shane O’Sullivan, Brian McLoughlin, Eoin Walsh. Subs: John Lynch for Reilly (24), Cormac Vizzard for Egan, Conor Murphy for O’Sullivan (both 45), James Behan for Shane McCormack (52), Ciaran Brady for Phillips (56).
CONFEY: Colin Heeney; Andrew Breslin, Kieran Kilbane, Colm Chan; Niall Cawley, Joe Kilbane, Imad Mirza; Patrick Griffin, Ciaran Lyons; Conor Dennehy, Paul Divilly, Conor Jennings; David Slattery, James Gately, Dean Malone. Subs: Mark Kelly for J KIlbane (10), Neil Ryan for Malone (36).
REFEREE: Fergus Devereux.