St Loman's 0-09 Ballyboden St Enda's 1-11
Ballyboden St Enda's will contest a Leinster club football final in two weeks’ time after they prevailed by 1-11 to 0-9 in a free-riddled encounter against St Loman's of Westmeath at Cusack Park this afternoon.
An entertaining first quarter saw eight points equally shared between the two sides but a Sam Molony goal gave Ballyboden a little breathing room in the run up to half time and they never relinquished that lead in a second half that saw referee Fergal Smyth award 29 frees, bringing the total up to 51 for the game as a whole.
With Ballyboden enjoying real dominance in their full-back line and also in the error count, they were able to easily hold off their rivals and set up a trip to O’Connor Park to face Portlaoise on 5 December.
After the game, Ballyboden manager Andy McEntee spoke of the importance of his goalkeeper Paul Durcan, who returned from Qatar to play in the tie and justified that decision with a crucial save to deny David Windsor in the 23rd minute.
After he stopped the St Lomans wing forward, the next attack of the contest ended with Sam Molony slamming the ball into the net for Ballyboden to put real daylight between the sides.
“Paul’s only back in the last week, he’s under pressure to head back there but we hope to have him back for the final” said McEntee afterwards. “He’s huge to us. He’s got a calm head on his shoulders and fellas have so much respect for him, it makes everyone feel calmer. He sees things that other people don’t.”
The opening 15 minutes suggested that these were two sides of real quality, well worth their place in the last four of the provincial competition, however, from a position of strength – leading 0-4 to 0-3 having conceded the first two points of the tie – St Lomans then fell away badly.
A final tally of a solitary point from the their full-forward line illustrated one key issue with their play while Ballyboden were imperious close to goal, with Stephen Hiney and Shane Clayton particularly outstanding.
The number of errors committed by St Lomans players – both forced and unforced – greatly exceeded that of their counterparts and that haunted them as they tried to reel in the pre-match favourites.
Time and again simply passes were put astray, players carried the ball into heavy traffic or opportunities to narrow the gap were spurned by the Mullingar club, while Boden continued to do the simple things well.
None of their scores will live long in the memory, but it’s notable that they actually had less scoring chances in the tie as a whole, 18 to 19. They were by far the more efficient side, and that stood to them.
A 1-7 to 0-6 interval lead for Ballyboden was substantial but still not enough to suggest that the tie was over as a contest, however three frees for Conal Keaney in as many minutes after the resumption gave them real breathing room.
A John Heslin free in the 35th minute trimmed the gap slightly but from then on neither side could gain any traction in the contest as every move seemed to end with a foul, and while Lomans earned far more frees than their opponents, they never looked like gaining the momentum they needed to start eating into the gap.
Another free from Heslin, earned by substitute Ciarán Kilmurray, broke a run of 14 minutes without a score from either side.
However that point was cancelled out by a powerful run from Michael Darragh Macauley that ended with the former Player of the Year punching the ball over the crossbar from a tight angle.
Time, rather than the Ballyboden attack, was now St Lomans real nemesis and as the home side became increasingly frustrated in the latter stages, their angst boiled over in a series of minor altercations, one of which saw Offaly county player Ken Casey dismissed on a straight red card.
St Lomans: J Daly; J O’Toole, N O’Toole, S Flynn; G Glennon, D Whelan, G Grehan; P Sharry (0-01), A Gaffney; D Windsor, J Heslin (0-07, 0-06f), K Lynam; S Dempsey, K Reilly, K Casey (0-01).
Subs: C Reilly for Windsor (ht), C Kilmurray for N O’Toole (37), R O’Toole for Lynam (42), G Hickey for Dempsey (47).
Ballyboden St Endas: P Durcan; B Dwan, S Hiney, S Clayton; D Nelson, R McDaid, S O’Connor; D O’Mahoney, MD Macauley (0-01); C Basquel (0-01), D Davey, D O’Reilly; C Keaney (0-04f), S Molony (1-01), A Kerin (0-04, 0-03f).
Subs: D McCabe for Davey (48), S Durkin for Dwan (53)
Referee: Fergal Smyth (Offaly)
