Donaghmore cruise past Clonoe to stay joint top

CLONOE 0-8 DONAGHMORE 3-12

UNBEATEN Donaghmore made light work of a trip to the Rahillys on Thursday night, underlining their burgeoning reputation as one of the county’s fast emerging young sides with an emphatic thirteen point victory in Division One.

From the moment Niall McKenna crashed home the opening goal in the eighth minute the tone for the evening was set, and try as they might Clonoe never remotely suggested they could crawl their way back into contention.

The McKenna brothers, along with James McCann, Ronan Donnelly, Conor O’Neill and Noah Grimes helped to run the show for the St Patrick’s, displaying no end of confidence or exuberance across the hour.

After an early exchange of frees between Grimes and McAliskey, the visitors wrested control. The impressive defender James McCann belted over a fine score, before fellow defender Jude McNally followed suit, and McKenna steamrollered through to crack a terrific goal past keeper Michael O’Neill.

Despite playing with a strong breeze at their backs, Clonoe struggled to make any inroads as an attacking force. They only added two further scores in the half, courtesy of Dwayne Quinn and McAliskey (free). And they must have sensed it wasn’t to be their night when McAliskey 20^th minute penalty was well turned aside by keeper Lorcan Quinn for a ’45’.

In marked contrast a purposeful and dynamic Donaghmore forward unit were much more clinical.

McKenna, Conor Cush (twice), Noah Grimes and Philip Donnelly put the cap on some polished approach work with accurate finishes as the away side led 1-8 to 0-3 at the interval.

While a brace of McAliskey scores (one free) closed the deficit when action resumed, a superb opportunist goal by midfielder Conor O’Neill from fully 45m, catching his namesake between the Clonoe posts off his line, all but sealed the contest in the 42^nd minute.

Daryl Magee did register two scores for the hosts, while hard-working sub Pascal McClure also converted on the turn, but when Conor Cush capitalised on a slip in the Clonoe defence to steer home a third goal in the 5oth minute, it rendered the latter stages fairly academic.