St Joseph’s secure Connacht crown

St Joseph’s College, Galway 2 Aloysius College, Athlone 1: St Joseph’s survived a second-half comeback from Aloysius College to secure the Connacht Schools "A" Cup in Eamonn Deacy Park yesterday.

Goals from Ben Brennan and Ross Murphy gave “The Bish” a 2-0 half-time lead and they needed that cushion as Aloysius College dominated the second half.

Full back Richie Greene halved the deficit when he met Conor Marlow’s cross with a wonderful header on 54 minutes. But the Athlone outfit were unable to build on that and failed to test goalkeeper James Grealish thereafter, though Aloysius had a big penalty shout turned down with 10 minutes left.

St Joseph’s now face Deele College of Raphoe in the Tony O’Neill Cup semi-final in Donegal.

ST JOSEPH’S: J Grealish; T McClean, B Keane, B Lally, D McGee; J Kennedy; B Brennan, J Coyne, R Murphy, C Melody; J Marvesley. Subs: E Higgins for Brennan (65), E Deacy for McGee (82).

ALOYSIUS: G Mannion; D Earle, A O’Reilly, C Marlowe, R Greene; D Connaughton; M Shine, C Callinan, F Lennon; K Daly, J Connaughton. Subs: C Murray for O’Reilly (33).

Referee: Ger Cahill.