Maghera open MacRory with a win

Danske Bank MacRory Cup

St Patrick’s Maghera 2-13 Holy Trinity College Cookstown 3-7

CAOLAN McLaughlin almost snatched a draw for Holy Trinity at the very end of a terrific match with St Patrick’s Maghera at Fr Rocks Cookstown yesterday afternoon.

He pulled on a ball in the Maghera area in the dying seconds of injury time, but somehow Zach Scullion deflected it to safety to secure a three points’ victory for the Derry school who were playing in their opening match.
The game started well for the home side with a fourth minute shot coming back off Scullion and Aodhán O’Loughlin buried the rebound to add to Peter McGurk’s earlier point.

Maghera fought back with a beautiful point from the side-line for Charlie Diamond and then they took the lead when Sean Kearney’s shot across the goals ended up in the top corner. Eunan O’Neill’s free shortly after tied the teams at 1-3 each and it remained like that until a couple of minutes before the break when Shea Quinn popped a ball over the top and off the base of the post into the Maghera net.

Sean Kearney took a pass from Marc Dickson five minutes into the second half to edge Maghera ahead with a fine goal, but almost immediately Shea Quinn nipped in to take advantage of a mix up in the Maghera defence and cancel it. However Cahir Higgins stepped up to tie the teams on 2-7 to 3-4 after 40 minutes.

For the next twenty minutes the teams traded points and as the game slipped into added time they were still level, 2-10 to 3-7.

However Maghera finished strongly with points from Marc Dickson, Sean Kearney and Cahir Higgins, Kearney’s a well-worked move with Sean O’Neill from a 45. But the Derry side had to hold off late pressure from Cookstown to collect the points.

Maghera have games coming up in quick succession against St Eunan’s and St Patrick’s Cavan, while Holy Trinity look to be heading for an early play-off unless they can pull off a surprise victory over Cavan.

St Patrick’s : Sean Kearney (2-3, 0-2 frees), Charlie Diamond (0-4, 0-3 frees), Marc Dickson (0-3), Cahir Higgins (0-3, 0-1 free).

Holy Trinity : Shea Quinn (2-2, 0-1 free), Aodhan O’Loughlin (1-0), Eunan O’Neill (0-2 frees), Peter McGurk (0-1), Blaine Ryan (0-1), Ben Donnelly (0-1).