O’Donoghue the ace as Doon coast to knockout stage

Doon CBS 2-13 Our Lady’s, Templemore 1-9

The victory puts the Limerick school through to the knock-out stages for the second year in a row, and on this evidence, will be hard to beat. The scoreline suggests Doon had matters all their own way, but it was far tougher than that. In fact, they fell a goal behind after seven minutes when Gerard Ryan’s shot found the corner of the net, and it took them 15 minutes of hard grafting to get that score back.

Doon have strength and skill in abundance. Edward Kiely at centre back, Michael Fitzgerald at centre forward and Paudie McNamara at full-forward all stand over six foot, McNamara and Fitzgerald in particular proving unstoppable, chalking up 10 points between them. In fairness Our Ladys’ best player was centre-back Ian Delaney, who showed some marvellous touches, and in firmer conditions might well have proved more than a match for Fitzgerald. He was ably assisted by Shane Scully and Michael Butler.

Doon were on level terms by the end of the opening quarter before taking a firm grip, particularly in attack where the Templemore defence had no answer to towering figure of McNamara and pace of Fitzgerald. Doon were 0-7 to 1-3 in front coming up to half-time before Tommy O’Donoghue’s opening goal, made for him by McNamara, helped his side to a 1-7 to 1-3 lead at the interval. The Templemore school re-shuffled on the resumption, principally the switch of Jodie Ryan out to midfield and they had the deficit down to two points after 36 minutes.

However, Doon’s greater physical strength was a telling factor and after the highly talented Fitzgerald hit over a point to settle their nerves, they took over again. Doon stretched their lead to six points by the end of the third quarter before they finally closed the door on Our Ladys with a second goal Brian Fenton picked out the unmarked Tommy O’Donoghue to score his second goal and there was no way back for Templemore. Scorers for Doon: T. O’Donoghue 2-1; M. Fitzgerald 0-6; P. McNamara 0-4; E. Kiely 0-2.

Our Lady’s: M. Butler 0-4; G. Ryan 1-0; I. Delaney 0-3; J. Ryan, N. Russell 0-1 each.

DOON CBS: B. Byrne; P. Fitzgerald, R. Dunne, M. O’Neill; J. Butler, E. Kiely, G. Allis; D. Moloney, C. Cronin; J. Bradshaw, M. Fitzgerald, T. O’Donoghue; B. Fenton, P. McNamara, C. Ryan.

Subs. R. Ryan for Dunne; K. McCarthy for Fenton.

OUR LADY’S: J. Scully; D. Brennan, R. Burke, C. Campion; P. Greed, I. Delaney. S. Scully; M. Butler, K. McGrath; J. Egan, N. Russell, G. Ryan; P. Murphy, J. Ryan, R. Stapleton. Subs. S. Burke for Russell; D. Costigan for Stapleton; S. Purcell for R. Burke; J. Ryan for Egan.

Referee: D. Farrell (Mitchelstown).