St Killian’s set up derby Foresters’ Cup semi with St Louis

Danske Bank Foresters’ Cup quarter-final

St Killian’s Garron Tower 3-15 Armagh Schools 3-8

St Killian’s Garron Tower kept alive their hopes of a sixth successive Danske Bank Foresters’ Cup final appearance with a comfortable seven points’ win over the Armagh schools’ combination at St Enda’s Glengormley yesterday afternoon.

St Killian’s started strongly with a point from Eoin McAuley and then a Tomas Scally goal, both inside the opening 90 seconds.

However Sean óg McGuiness pounced on a loose ball a minute later to find the net for Armagh and his second goal just before the end of the first quarter made it 2-1 to 1-5 even though the Antrim side was dominating general play.

That domination continued during the second quarter but they didn’t show it on the half-time score-board, adding just a further four points, including one each from the half-forward line of Finlay Walker, Alexander McMullan and John McAllister.

Turning over at 1-9 to 2-2, St Killian’s began to stretch their lead with two points each from McKay and McAllister, while Fintan Donnelly pointed several frees and then blasted a penalty to the Tower net to close the gap to two points.

However the Alexander McMullan replied with a goal for St Killian’s and points from Walker and McKay preceded a second goal for McMullan and the Tower had clinched a semi-final place against St Louis Ballymena for later in the week.

The last of the quarter-finals goes ahead tomorrow at Mallusk with St Patrick’s Maghera expected to see off the challenge of Divis Schools and set up a semi-final with competition favourites Cross & Passsion Ballycastle.

St Killian’s : L McLoughlin, C Black, R McCollam, A Ritson, C O’Conner, D McAuley 0-1, E Hynds, T Scally 1-1, D O’Boyle, F Walker 0-2, S McKay 0-6, 0-2 frees, A McMullan 2-1, J McAllister 0-3, E McAuley 0-1, R McAteer.

Subs : S Black for R McAteer, E McHenry for E McAuley.

Armagh : L Murtagh, T Fagan, D Murphy, M Lennon, O Richards, D Hartnet, N Hunt, R Short, C Laverty, L Coulter 0-1, F Donnelly 1-6, 1-0 pen., 0-6 frees, O Hughes, C Donnelly 0-1, M Rafferty, S óg McGuiness 2-0.