Doherty’s goals condemn Holy Trinity to play-offs

Danske Bank MacRory Cup
St Patrick’s Maghera 2-9 Holy Trinity Cookstown 0-8
From Kevin Kelly
The outcome of this game in Castledawson was in the balance into the third quarter when a key moment in the contest arrived.
Having hit the opening three scores of the second half to close the gap to three Holy Trinity had Mark Devlin straight red carded and they lost all the momentum that they had built up, the winners taking full advantage to bag their second goal shortly afterwards.
It was a cagey opening ten minutes with Maghera establishing a 0-3 to 0-1 lead thanks to points from Alex Doherty, Shea Murray and Fintan Bradley, Tiernan Quinn on target for Holy Trinity.
At the end of the opening quarter full forward Doherty struck for the first of his two goals to put Maghera in the driving seat. Daithi McLaughlin and Doherty traded points with Tiarnan Mackle and Devlin to leave the scoreboard reading 1-6 to 0-3 at the short whistle.
Maghera had lots of possession on the restart without making it count and instead it was Holy Trinity who made the most of the chances that came their way with Quinn, Mackle and Shane Murphy all raising white flags.
At that stage they lost Devlin after he had disputed a referee’s call too vigorously and the whole pattern of the game changed. Doherty opened Maghera’s second half account with another major and they never looked back.
To their credit Holy Trinity battled gamely with 14 men with Mackle and Quinn adding points but those scores were cancelled out at the other end by Tiarnan McHugh, Doherty and half back Eunan Mulholland as Maghera ran out comfortable winners in the end.
Maghera and St Macartans Monaghan meet next week in the final game in this group with the winner going into the MacCormack Cup semi finals as well as the last eight of the MacRory Cup.
Next week also sees two sudden death playoffs when the losers will bow out of this season’s Danske Bank MacRory Cup with Holy Trinity taking on St Paul’s Bessbrook and St Patrick’s Cavan going head to head with Patrician High Carrickmacross. The two Danske Bank MacCormack Cup semi finals have been postponed until the second week of January.
Maghera : A Doherty 2-3, D McLaughlin 0-2, S Murray 0-1, F Bradley 0-1, E Mulholland 0-1, T McHugh 0-1

Holy Trinity : T Quinn 0-3, T Mackle 0-3, M Devlin 0-1, S Murphy 0-1