Travers on hand to maintain Maynooth’s grip on trophy

MAYNOOTH PP 1-5 ST BENILDUS COL 0-7

DUBLIN SCHOOLS’ SFC ‘A’ FINAL

Midfielder Brian Travers was the hero at O’Toole Park as his 49th-minute goal helped Maynooth Post Primary to secure back-to-back Dublin Senior ‘A’ titles at the expense of St Benildus College.

The north Kildare school had built up a three-point cushion by the end of the first quarter thanks to points from Shane Monaghan (two), wing-back Derry Bradley and Owen Byrne.

Even though Benildus — who won this competition on four successive occasions before relinquishing their crown in January — recovered impressively with fine efforts by Kevin Creasey, Sean Bedford and the increasingly influential Tom Fox, an injury-time Donnacha Healy score gave Maynooth a slender 0-5 to 0-4 interval lead.

Playing against the breeze after the restart, Maynooth were finding scores hard to come by, and Benildus levelled matters once more with a 46th-minute Mark Doyle point. However, Travers was on hand to fire past netminder Dillon Rafferty from close range after Monaghan’s 25-metre free had dropped short.

This proved to be the decisive score of the game, and although Benildus reduced their deficit to the minimum, thanks to contributions from Fox and Andy McGowan, they ultimately could not rein in the Maynooth lead.

Scorers — Maynooth Post-Primary: B Travers 1-0, S Monaghan 0-2 (2fs), D Bradley, O Byrne, D Healy 0-1 each. St Benildus College: T Fox 0-3 (1f), S Bedford (1f), M Doyle, A McGowan, K Creasey 0-1 each.

MAYNOOTH POST-PRIMARY — K Kelly; I Doyle, D Maguire, T Forde; D O’Sullivan, P Mescal, D Bradley; B Travers, O Byrne; D Cullen, D Healy, S O’Se; P Murray, S Monaghan, F Stack. Subs: W McDonnell for Cullen (46), A Dunne for Stack (62).

ST BENILDUS COLLEGE — D Rafferty; E Ryan, M Mitchell, G Fallon; O Quinn, M Doyle, C Pearson; C Lyndon, R Costelloe; B McGeary, A McGowan, T Fox; S Bedford, K Creasey, C O’Connor. Subs: M Crowley for McGeary (h-t), E Allen for Creasey (h-t).

Ref — D Feeney (Parnells).