A beautiful day in the South East saw scorching temperatures, even in the evening as Éire Óg welcomed St Dympna’s to Horspath in the final group game of the John Wallace Cup. The team from Luton started brightly with Kevin Killeen, James McKenzie, Brendan O’ Leary and Ciaran Gallen featuring prominently. An early goal to to the Luton team and some points after John Flynn had scored for Oxford left the score at 1-02 to a point. Unfortunately there was a cash of heads between two of the Oxford players, both of whom had to be substituted after ten minutes. Shortly after tailsman Chris Donnellan came off with a hamstring injury. The home side were shaken. Dympna’s tagged on another point. Then Piers McGlynn was fouled in the small square, Piers picked himself up and slotted the resulting penalty with aplomb. Corner Back, Dave Behan popped up at the end of the first half to score a Marc Ó Sé esque point.
Half Time Éire Óg 1-03 St Dympna’s 1-07
On the resumption of play supersub Thomas Gaughan announced his intent with a well taken point. Dympna’s pulled one back. Éire Óg settled down and started to play some nice football. Some excellent points from Gaughan, McGlynn and Flynn brought the Oxford side closer. The best score of the day came from a Conor Finnegan free, the Sligo man out on the left hand side slotted over a peach with his right off his hands. Piers McGlynn made an excellent run down the left hand side and set up Kevin Morrissey with a lovely pass across the square, Kevin palmed the ball into the net. Thomas Gaughan and John Flynn added more points. Finally after a run from deep Colin Forde played a one two with Alan Stone, and Forde took his point and closed out the game.
Full Time Éire Óg 2-12 St Dympna’s 1-08
Éire Óg: J Buckley, D Behan (0-01), J Corrigan, E Connaughton, R Jones, C Forde (0-01), M De Cogan, C Dillon, K Morrissey (1-00), JP Doyle, C Finnegan (0-01), E Toomey, J Flynn (0-03), C Donnellan, P McGynn (1-02). Subs: J Mangan for J Corrigan, A Stone for M De Cogan, H Davies for C Donnellan, T Gaughan (0-04) for H Davies, M Fallon for JP Doyle.
Management: J Gaughan, E Devlin, T Griffin.
Ref: F Dillon (Éire Óg)