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Senior Championship Semi-Final

Donaghmore/Ashbourne v St. Peter's Dunboyne

Half Time Score Don/Ash 0-2 Dunboyne 0-4

Full Time Don/Ash 0-5 Dunboyne 0-9

While weather conditions played a role in this encounter it wasn't to blame for the loosing of this match for Donaghmore who went into it with a quiet confidence that they could beat Dunboyne if they played the football they have produced in the last few matches. But on the day it wasn't to be and their free flowing and movement on the ball just didn't play a part in this very defensive setup where most times there were 13 men behind the ball. This also lead to a very low scoring match and at the first water break the team were level at 2 points each.

Donal Lenihan got off the mark after 2 minutes with a point from a 45. It took Don/Ash almost 6 minutes to get on the board with a point from Michael Deegan from a free. Donaghmore did have a lot of the ball in the first 15 minutes but just couldn't make it count on the scoreboard and found it difficult to get past the packed Dunboyne defence against the wind. Dylan Brady who worked extremely hard for the entire match put over a point from play after 8 minutes but David McEntee levelled matters before the first water break which left it 2 points each. Brady's point was the last that was scored by Don/Ash until the 42nd minute which just isn't good enough at this level. Both teams were guilty of some bad wides from play where players were been forced to take shots from difficult positions due to the defensive nature of this match. Dunboyne went on to score 2 further points before half time from the boot of Cathal Finn and Gavin McCoy who were playing with the wind in the first half. Jason Boland with a wonderful save off the line and Iarlaith O'Donnell worked very hard in the full back line and Conor Carton kept Donal Lenihan extremely quiet which is a difficult job to do and kept him scoreless from play for the entire match. Evan Quinn for me was our Man of the Match certainly for Don/Ash for such a young lad he has a great football brain and hopefully he will see better days with this team.

With only 2 points separating the teams at half time it was still anybody's game and but for the fantastic save from Andy Colgan on 39 minutes it could have been game over. Donal Lenihan's 2nd point came from a free 4 minutes into the 2nd half followed by a spate of wides from Don/Ash. Bryan Menton was through and looked like a goal was on but unfortunately blasted wide and as the Van Morrison song goes "there will be days like this". Dunboyne went 4 points up with Stuart Lowndes firing over from a long way out. Both McGovern's were immense and worked so hard all over the pitch which resulted in Darragh scoring a point in the 42nd minute and Thomas in the 45th minute . Cathal Finn made it a 3 point game just before the 2nd water break with a point from play. Shane Melia brought it back to 2 points with a point from play on 28 minutes. It was still all to play for but it wasn't to be for the men in green as Dunboyne scored another 2 points in injury time with Cathal Finn and Conor Bradley easing them into the Keegan Cup final on November 7th. It was a disappointing day for Donaghmore/Ashbourne especially as they had been playing a really good and open style of football for the last couple of months but yesterday was anything but open football which did not flatter our full forward line who were starved of ball.

It is all over for another year but there are plenty of green shoots appearing and let's hope 2022 will be a better year all round to look forward to.

Don/Ash:- Andrew Colgan, Jason Boland, Iarlaith O'Donnell, Conor Carton, Evan Quinn, Thomas McGovern (0-1), Sean Curran (C), Shane Melia (0-1), Bryan Menton, Darragh McGovern (0-1), Dylan Brady (0-1), Shaun Byrne, Michael Deegan (0-1 f), Andrew Tormey, Jamie Browne. Subs:- Stephen Carton for Browne (50), Leo Reilly for D McGovern (60 + 2)) and James Redmond for Carton (60 + 4)