September 22nd 2018
Mayo Senior Football Championship Quarter-Final
Ballintubber 2-17 Moy Davitts 0-11
Our seniors took another strident step towards the county final as we saw off the challenge of Moy Davitts this evening. While both teams played the game in a spirited and attacking manner we simply had too much firepower for the opposition, leading by eight at half-time courtesy of goals from Alan Plunkett and Alan Dillon. We impressed all over the field, with Cillian O’Connor ever-reliable on the frees while Jason Gibbons ran the show at midfield.
It appeared as if the Moysiders would make a game of it early on , with their marquee forward Brian Reape causing havoc up front early on. Brendan Walsh also saved a goal attempt by Alan Bourke which would’ve given Davitts two-point lead. Both teams landed a triplet of unanswered scores as it appeared as if we had a right good contest on our hands.
However, Alan Plunkett’s goal in the twenty-second minute turned the tide empathically in our favour. Only Cillian knows whether he meant it or not, but nonetheless the Mayo captain somehow headed the ball straight into Plunkett’s path after failing to catch Alan Dillon. Plunkett then made a beeline for the Moy Davitts net and rifled the ball past Christopher McGlynn, putting us two ahead.
Corner-forward Padraig O’Connor then added two points (including a beauty off his left side), before a single score from Plunkett but us five ahead. The men from the Moy then paid a hefty price for underestimating Alan Dillon’s soccer skills as the Mayo veteran dribbled the ball on the ground past two Davitts defenders before finishing a daisy-cutter to the back of the net.
The tempo eased off in the second half, with us not scoring from play until a Padraig O’Connor point in the seventeenth minute. Moy Davitts also lost a key player in Padraic Ruane to a black card midway through the half, while they simply had no answer to Jason Gibbons’ dominance at centre-field.
We would add six more points before the finish, with Stephen O’Malley getting a pair of points while Alan Plunkett added a third to his tally, with Moy Davitt’s only managing three in reply. The return of Brian Walsh to the Red and White jersey in the second half after an injury layoff will be a welcome boost to Kevin Johnson’s charges, as the road ahead will no doubt grow significantly steeper as we seek to reclaim the Moclair Cup for a fourth time.
Ballintubber team that lined out: (1)Brendan Walsh (2)Gary Loftus (3)Cathal Hallinan (4)Brian Murphy (5)Damien Coleman (6)Michael Plunkett (7)Ruaidhri O’Connor (8)Jason Gibbons (0-2) (9)Diarmuid O’Connor (10)Ciaran Gavin (11)Alan Dillon (1-0) (12)Alan Plunkett (1-3) (13)Padraig O’Connor (0-3) (14)Cillian O’Connor (0-7, 6f) (15)Stephen O’’Malley (0-2)
Substitutions used: Brian Walsh for Ciaran Gavin, Myles Kelly for Ruaidhri O’Connor, Declan Larkin for Cathal Hallinan, Joe Geraghty for Damien Coleman
Report by our own Oisín McGovern
