Result: 2 – 16 to 0 – 10
Ballyboden St Endas 2 – 16 Trinity Gaels 0 – 10
The Boden gave their most impressive display of the season when they totally outplayed Trinity Gaels to advance to the next round with a bit to spare.
Showing a great appetite for work, the Boden side responded to an early Trinity point with a fine goal by Niall Clarke. The Northsiders enjoyed the better of the opening ten minutes and three unanswered points put them back in front.
Although it took Boden until the 13th minute to get their next score – a point by the impressive Kenny Naughton, and a Stephen Hiney goal a minute later put Boden 2 – 1 to 0 – 5 in front by the quarter-hour mark.
From there to the finish there was only one team in the game as Boden went on to add 15 more points to just five points for the Gaels.
Excellent points before half-time by Andrew Kerin, Conal Keaney, Simon Lambert put Boden 2 – 5 to 0 – 7 in front at the break.
With Colin Moran and Declan O’Mahony in complete control at midfield, Boden went in search of the killer scores early in the second half.
Three early chances went wide but once the forwards found the range they went on to kick nine great scores from play.
The workrate of the backline was superb with the wing halves Conor Dolan and Niall Clarke using their pace to break forward in support of the attack. Young Simon Lambert on his championship debut grabbed a second score before Kenny Naughton, Niall Clarke, Colin Moran and Andrew Kerin all finished off some great moves – a number of which started deep in the Boden half of the field.
Stephen Hiney was inspirational and gave tremendous leadership and when introduced Paul Galvin’s determined play and finishing caught the eye with two great points.
Trinity staged a late rally that yielded three points in the closing six minutes but in goals Cormac Smyth was intent on keeping a clean sheet and brought off two outstanding stops.
There will be tougher opponents ahead but the side will be heartened by this performance. The team worked extremely hard. The direct route to goal paid dividends and 2 – 14 from play on any day is a fair achievement.
Cormac Smyth, Mark Fitzgerald, Darragh Kiernan, Mark O’Sullivan, Niall Clarke (1 – 1), James O’Hara, Conor Dolan, Colin Moran (0 – 1), Declan O’Mahony, Kenny Naughton (0 – 3), Stephen Hiney (1 – 0), Shane Durkin, Simon Lambert (0 – 2), Conal Keaney (0 – 2), Andrew Kerin (0 – 5).
Subs: Paul Galvin (0 – 2) for Durkin; Finbarr Kiely for Naughton; Mark O’Connor for Hiney; Ian Clarke for Moran; Dave Ryan for Dolan