Dream comes true for near perfect St Mary’s CBS

For 52 minutes or so of Saturday’s Drummond Cup decider, this was a near-perfect performance from St Mary’s CBS.

The Leinster champions recovered from the concession of a sixth-minute goal to carve out an eight-point interval advantage, posting 1-7 without reply in the process. Their dominance continued apace at the change of ends, notching a further five unanswered points to move 13 clear. Their movement up front, use of possession and composure in defence ticked all the right boxes.

On 49 minutes, Josh Ryan converted a run-of-the-mill free to end Abbey CBS’s 43-minute barren spell. The midfielder, fetching an Andrew Vance delivery, finished to the net at the second attempt for goal number two and St Marys’ lead was further eroded when Ryan was tripped inside the large parallelogram on 54 minutes. Daire Egan converted the resulting penalty to reduce the gap to 1-13 to 3-1.