Mixed fortunes for East Tyrone schools in MacRory Cup

THE second round of fixtures in this season’s Danske Bank MacRory Cup took place over the weekend and there were mixed fortunes for Tyrone schools with two wins and two defeats.

Holders Omagh CBS made it two out of two as did St Patrick’s Academy Dungannon, while Holy Trinity Cookstown and St Joseph’s Donaghmore both experienced narrow losses.

Holy Trinity took on Our Lady’s Castleblayney in Garvaghey on Friday with the Monaghan lads bagging three goals either side of halftime to turn the game on its head on their way to a 4-6 to 1-14 victory.

Cookstown had their noses in front thanks to points from Conor Devlin, Ryan Nugent and Shea Lawn but just before the break Dara McMahon and Canice Murphy both scored Castleblayney goals.

Despite being down to 14 men the Monaghan lads found the net again early in the second half through Max McGinnity. Michael McElhatton then fired in Holy Trinity’s major only for Tadhg Hegarty to respond with a fourth Our Lady’s goal.

Monaghan were then reduced to 13 players and Holy Trinity piled on the pressure with points from McElhatton, Liam Lawn and Eoin Long but their efforts came up just short.

St Joseph’s Donaghmore were also in action on Friday and they to lost by the minimum margin 1-10 to 1-9 against St Pat’s Cavan in Clones.

Donaghmore were the better side in the first half and that was reflected on the scoreboard as they led 0-6 to 0-4.

Cavan had started the better of the two sides with Conor Sharpe and Darragh Noonan among their points but St Joseph’s turned things around with scores from Joseph Corrigan (2), Conor O’Neill and Noah Grimes.

Sharpe opened the second half scoring but Donaghmore hit back with a well taken goal from Darragh Donaghy.

St Joseph’s looked to be in a good position at this stage but Cavan had points from Cian McCrystal and Sharpe to keep them in contention.

With time running out, though, Cavan hit the front with a Sharpe goal with Noonan adding a point and, while Donaghmore had scores from Corrigan and Grimes, they couldn’t find the equaliser.

Meanwhile, the Academy made it full points from two outings after beating St Michael’s Enniskillen in Clogher on Saturday afternoon.

Dungannon led by double scores at halftime, 0-8 to 0-4, with points coming from Sean Hughes, Liam McGeary and Finn Spence, Shaun McCarron and Mattie McDermott among the Enniskillen marksmen.

Conor O’Hanlon reduced the deficit on the restart but the Academy responded with two from McGeary and one from Hughes.

Going into the final quarter O’Hanlon and Dara Cathcart had further Enniskillen points but again Dungannon were able to respond through McGeary, Spence, Hughes and Conall Sheehy.

With time running out St.Michael’s got the only goal of the game via James Corry but it finished 0-16 to 1-8 in favour of the Tyrone lads.