Dominant Drumquin power into the quarter-finals

Drumquin 2-19  Brackaville 0-9

JOB done with plenty to spare and a bit to work on. It wasn’t the perfect performance, but Division Three champions Drumquin still managed to carve out a resounding 2-19 to 0-9 Junior Championship victory over Brackaville at Killyclogher.

The Wolfe Tones looked a little ring-rusty at times, perhaps unsurprisingly so given the backdrop of their long-awaited league triumph, but they still played plenty of swashbuckling football against a gallant Brackaville.

Brackaville opened the scoring right off the bat via Jason O’Neill and that set the tone for a decent half from the outsiders against the might of the newly-minted league champions.

You wouldn’t have thought that going by the first ten minutes, however, as Drumquin found their groove with four points on the trot, Oisin Gormley at the heart of all that was good about their play, scoring three of those efforts.

Sean McDonagh tagged on a free as Drumquin opened up a 0-4 to 0-1 lead with the game going very much as expected, but those assumptions soon dissipated as Brackaville diligently worked their way into the game in an impressive purple patch.

Brackaville’s Ronan McHugh added a free, but Drumquin responded with a fine point from Finnen Patterson, the nucleus of which was a turnover from the hard-working Gormley.

The underdogs then made their move, Oisin Brady scoring a free, Gary Ferguson finishing off a fine breakaway move and McHugh ensuring parity at 0-5 apiece with 25 minutes gone.

To say this wasn’t in the script would be putting it mildly, but it was still too early to talk about a championship shock, though Drumquin did reach into the subs bench, bringing on Ronan Strain, one of the stars of their successful league campaign.

Brackaville were working extremely hard, and blotting out Drumquin attacks thanks to the diligence and positional sense of the likes of Dwayne McKenna and Chris Kearns, but the Wolfe Tones started to shift through the careers and finished the half very strongly indeed.

Gormley weighed in with a couple of points, while Sean McDonagh landed a skyscraper effort with arguably the point of the game as they re-established dominance.

Their scoring spurt continued with another fine point, this time from Patterson, pushing Drumquin into a 0-9 to 0-5 lead at half-time.

So for all Brackaville’s best efforts, they found themselves back at base camp for the beginning of the second-half.
Drumquin led by double scores when Gormley scored his sixth of the day (to say he was influential would be doing the man a considerable disservice), and they almost conjured up a goal when Padraic Rogers’ attempt trickled wide after exquisite combination play from Gormley and Strain.

Brackaville earned a free which was converted by McHugh, but Drumquin were attacking with pace and fluency and moving into a 0-11 to 0-6 lead with a McDonagh free.

It wasn’t a done deal, however and Gary Ferguson kicked his first of the day, a half-goal chance with 20 minutes remaining.

It had been a fairly low-key performance from the Tones but they kept Brackaville at arm’s length with a rapidfire spurt of scores that essentially put the game to bed.

Brackaville were finding it hard to contain Drumquin’s runners from deep and the Wolfe Tones conjured points from the hugely impressive Finnen Patterson, Caolan Gormley and Eoin Skelton to move into a 0-17 to 0-7 lead with less than ten minutes remaining.

It seemed like Brackaville had run out of steam with Drumquin now virtually home and hosed and the inevitable was rubber stamped when Sean McDonagh palmed the ball into the net as full-time approached.

Brackaville didn’t give up with Gary Ferguson scoring a couple of late efforts, but Drumquin sealed the deal with two late points from Ronan Strain and a fine individual goal with the last move of the game from sub, Cormac Rogers, to put the icing on the cake.

It hadn’t really been a vintage performance from the Wolfe Tones but the final scoreboard read 2-19 to 0-9 in their favour, setting up a mouth-watering quarter-final clash against a strong Killeeshil side in a fortnight’s time as they stay on course for a league and championship double.

The Scorers

Drumquin
Oisin Gormley (0-7, 3f), Sean McDonagh (1-3, 2f), Finnen Patterson (0-5), Cormac Rogers (1-0), Ronan Strain (0-2), Caolan Gormley and Eoin Skelton (0-1 each)

Brackaville
Gary Ferguson (0-4), Ronan McHugh (0-3f), Oisin Brady and Jason O’Neill (0-1 each)