Sport

St Colman's show no mercy

St Colman's, Fermoy - 4-15 Mercy Woodford - 0-5: St Colman's, Fermoy, the reigning All-Ireland colleges senior hurling champions…

Mon Apr 15 2002 - 01:00

St Colman's, Fermoy - 4-15 Mercy Woodford - 0-5: St Colman's, Fermoy, the reigning All-Ireland colleges senior hurling champions, had their expected easy victory over Mercy College, Woodford, making their first appearance in the semi-final stage at Kilmallock yeterday.

The Cork college set out their stall inside four minutes when Michael Allen beat goalkeeper Dara Starr and after that the Galway boys, even though favoured with the elements, were always struggling.

Scoring sensation Andrew O'Shaughnessy consolidated the winners' position with a 10th- minute goal and just on half-time a speculative shot from Stephen Molumphy left it 3-5 to 0-2 and it was no consolation to the Mercy College that they had shot nine wides.

In the opening minutes of the second half there was more pressure on St Colman's with goalkeeper Denis Fitzgerald making two great saves from Kevin Hoban and Damien Kell.

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But St Colman's, on top in all departments, went on to cruise their way to victory and crowned a fine display with a fourth goal from Luke Philpott in 48 minutes to make it 4-11 to 0-4.

ST COLMAN'S , FERMOY: D Fitzgerald; J Dorgan, B Lane, S Barrett; R Relihan, M O'Brien, K McCurtin; E Condon (0-1), A Kearney; P Kearney (0-4), J O'Donnell (0-1), S Molumphy (1-1); A O'Shaughnessy (1-6), L Philpott (1-1), M Allen (1-1). Subs: J Kelly for P Kearney, C O'Connell for O'Brien, B Healy for O'Shaughnessy, C Coakley for Philpott.

MERCY COLLEGE, WOODFORD: D Starr; M Daniels, C Harte, O Rohan; R Whyte, P Flynn, N O'Grady; A Garvey (0-2), F Hahneseld; D Broderick, K Hoban (0-2), D Kelly (0-1); K Page, D Garvey, B Sheil.

Referee: S McMahon (Clare).

Dublin's minor hurlers are hardly likely to chalk up an easier victory in the Leinster championship than that achieved on Saturday at Arklow when they scored a massive 37 points victory (5-23 to 0-1) over Wicklow in the opening round robin game.

Wicklow midfielder Alan Tiernan had the opening point for the home side from a free but thereafter the traffic was all one way.

Centre back Ronan Fallon fired over six marvellous points, four from 65s and the other two from long-range frees, while Michael Griffin, Pat McAvinue, Alan Glennon, full forward Seanie O'Sullivan were others to shine in a good team performance.

SCORERS: Dublin (A Glennon 2-1, M Griffin 1-4, R Fallon 0-6, four 65s, two frees), G Keogh 1-2, P McAvinue 0-4, frees, S O'Sullivan 0-3, T Sweeney 1-0, W Purtill 0-2, D Mitchell 0-1; Wicklow (A Tiernan 0-1, free).