GAA | Joe’s beat O’Connell’s in Sheelan Shield derby

St Joseph’s 0–21 O’Connell’s 2–13

St Joseph’s advanced to the next round of the Paddy Sheelan Shield with a two point victory over their neighbours O’Connell’s after extra time in Cluskey Park on Friday night.

The teams shared the first four points with the same two men scoring, Niall Conlon for O’Connell’s and Conal Smith for the Joes.

The home side then landed the next four points without reply from Alan Quigley, Conall O’Hanlon, Peter Brennan and Alan McKenna.

Paul McKeever pulled one back for the visitors but Quigley landed a brace of points, one from a free and the other an excellent 45 and David Keirn pointed to leave six between the teams.

Conlon got the last two points of the half to leave the score at the break 0–9 to 0–5 in favour of the home team.

The Bellingham side started the second half on the front foot and points from Conlon and Salem Rifaie cut the lead to two and a minute later they were ahead.

A great move saw PJ Tuite find Conlon, he passed to the onrushing Sean Cairns who laid it off to Conor Culligan and he rounded the keeper and shot to the net.

Substitute Derek Mulligan drew the teams level with the Dromiskin side’s first score of the second half. Conlon and Quigley traded frees to keep the score level before Conlon again put his side ahead after 48 minutes.

Points from Mulligan and O’Hanlon put the home team one up but that was quickly equalised by a Culligan free and the teams shared the last two points to leave the score 1–11 to 0–14 at the end of 60 minutes.

The first period of extra time was more or less one-way traffic with the visitors failing to register a score while the Joes scored five points, three from Quigley and two from Brennan to leave them 0–19 to 1–11 ahead at the interval of extra-time.

A Conlon point reduced the margin to four but points from Mulligan and McKenna increased it to six with the same amount of time left on the watch.

O’Connell’s were then awarded a penalty after Jackie Agnew burst through the defence and passed to Conlon who was brought down in the area and the ref pointed to the spot. Conlon sent the keeper the wrong way and the margin was down to three with five minutes to go.

However, a Paul McKeever point from a free, with less than three minutes to go, proved to be the last score of the game and it’s the Joes who advance to the next round of the Sheelan Shield.

ST JOSEPH’S: Robert Samson; Ciaran Gallagher, Shane McQuillan, Stefan Potts; David Keirn (0–1), David Mernagh, Alan Lynch; Killian Staunton, Craig Doherty; Peter Brennan (0–3, 1f), Jack Mulligan (0–1), Alan McKenna (0–2); Conal Smith (0–2), Conal O’Hanlon (0–1), Alan Quigley (0–7, 4f, 2 45s). Subs: Derek Mulligan (0–3) for C Doherty, Cian McGuinness for S McQuillan, Aidan Keiran for K Staunton.

O’CONNELL’S: Stuart Reynolds; Kyle Daniels, Dean Stanfield, Liam Kiernan; James Clerkin, Andrew Sharkey, PJ Tuite; Jackie Agnew, Sean Cairns; Stuart Osbourne, Salem Rifaie (0–1), Paul McKeever (0–3, 1f); Stefan O’Hanrahan, Niall Conlon (1–8, 3f), Conor Culligan (1–1,1f). Subs: Micheal Cairns for PJ Tuite, Ciaran O’Brien for S O’Hanrahan, Conor Kiernan for C Culligan, John McLoughlin for S Osbourne, James Luckie for L Kiernan.