St Gall's grab Kilmacud Sevens title

After a marathon 82-game competition, St Gall's of Antrim made amends for last year's final defeat as they were crowned Kilmacud Crokes All-Ireland Senior Football Sevens champions at sunny Pairc de Burca in Stillorgan today.

Having lost to Longstone of Down in last year's decider, the Belfast outfit made amends by claiming their third title by overcoming Glenullin of Derry in an all-Ulster final by 1-11 to 0-13.

St Gall's started strongly with a point from the throw-in by Sean Kelly and with Andrew McClean following this score up with a well-worked goal. With Kevin Niblock adding a score, Gall's quickly broke into a five-point lead.

Eoin Bradley settled Glenullin with a wonderful point from the left touchline under severe pressure and followed up with two further points.

Gerard O'Kane got in amongst the scorers as Glenullin drew level but a point just before Cork referee Micheal Collins' half-time whistle by Karl Stewart gave Gall's a 1-04 to 0-06 advantage.

Kelly repeated his first-half trick by winning the throw-in and driving forward to score for the Saints before Paddy Bradley responded immediately with a score from a difficult angle.

Efforts from Kevin and Kieran McGourty then stretched the gap to a goal.

Points from the Bradley clan, Eoin, Paddy and Conrad, brought Glenullin back into contention, but Kevin Niblock and Karl Stewart kept the gap at two points.

Paddy Bradley landed a late free but it was not enough to deny St Gall's a wonderful success.

Earlier, Gall's overcame Down side Kilcoo in their semi-final by 1-14 to 0-10 with Colm Bradley and Anto Healy amongst their scorers - a convincing seven-point win despite the minimum separating the sides at the interval.

Glenullin fired a fantastic 8-07 in their semi-final win over Clonduff of Down, having registered a whopping 2-17 in their quarter-final defeat of Gaoth Dobhair from Donegal.

Amazingly nine of the 12 groups were won by Ulster clubs, with Down on top in five of those, thanks to fine displays from Castlewellan, An Ríocht, Kilcoo, Bryansford and Clonduff, who all advanced to the knock-out stages.

The other group winner, apart from those mentioned and the quarter-finalists, were Bellaghy (Derry), who went out in a play-off to last year's champions Longstone.