Holy Trinity boys just come up short in Corn Colmcille Final

Holy Trinity Cookstown 2-7 St Malachys Castlewellan1-11

HOLY Trinity Cookstown just came up short in the Ulster Schools Corn Colmcille Cup Final at Davitt Park in Lurgan when they lost out by the minimum margin to St.Malachys Castlewellan in an entertaining contest.

There was little between two well matched sides throughout with the Down lads sealing victory nine minutes from time thanks to a superb long range effort from midfielder Luke Rice. Despite having time on their hands as well as chances Holy Trinity just couldn’t find an equaliser that would have taken the game to extra time.

Mattie Coyle opened the scoring for Holy Trinity in the 4th minute but that was to prove to be the only time that they would get their noses in front during the contest.

In the next attack Setanta Laverty levelled matters and that was the beginning of a purple patch for St.Malachys as they reeled off five unanswered points with Rice and Padraig Bannon getting a brace each.

In the 15th minute Holy Trinity struck for the first goal as Rory Grimes finished to the net from close range after Castlewellan keeper Jude McKee had failed to deal with a high delivery in from Jack McGuigan.

Conn McKeown then sent over the equaliser but against Castlewellan replied with a series of points from Laverty, Bannon and Thomas Kane (2). Holy Trinity closed out the half with scores from Tiarnan Lagan and Sean Devlin but they still trailed 0-9 to 1-4.

Within sixty seconds of the restart Kane got the St.Malachys goal and Bannon tagged on a point from a long range free. The rest of the third quarter though belong to Holy Trinity and after points from McGuigan and McKeown they got a superb goal from Michael Herron to really make it game on.

Castlewellan keeper Jude McKee was called into action to make a double save before McKeown grabbed the equaliser. The last eleven minutes produced just a single point but it proved to be the winner from Rice.

Scorers

Holy Trinity Cookstown: Conn McKeown 0-3 (1F), Rory Grimes 1-0, Michael Herron 1-0, Mattie Coyle 0-1, Tiarnan Lagan 0-1, Sean Devlin 0-1, Jack McGuigan 0-1 (F)

St Malachy’s Castlewellan: Thomas Kane 1-2, Padraig Bannon 0-4 (1F), Luke Rice 0-3, Setanta Laverty 0-2 (1F)

Referee: Fearghal Laverty, Armagh