Our 2010 inter-county season may have been a wretched one but it began with success over Galway in the FBD home final in early February and it’s now just concluded with more of the same, as we beat New York by 0-19 to 0-7 in the final final of the FBD final over at Rockland GAA Club, in Orangeburg, New York this evening. It’s just a pity we had such a crap championship (not to mention the league final) in between otherwise it could have been a great year for us altogether.
The last time we’d played New York – in the preliminary round of last year’s championship – they’d put it up to us for a fair bit of the first half and today they went a bit further, by keeping the match all-square at half-time. We raced five points clear in that first half but then allowed the locals back into it and the match was tied at six points apiece at the break. Jimmy Killeen got two of those first half points for us, one from a free, with Andy Moran, Mark Ronaldson, Aidan O’Shea and Trevor Mortimer (who lined out at midfield for us today) all chipping in with a point each.
New York may have managed to box toe-to-toe with Galway right up to the full-time whistle in the championship back in May but they weren’t able to stick with our lads after the break today. Over the course of a lopsided second period, we added a further thirteen points with just one solitary point in reply from the home team as we eased to a twelve-point victory and our second FBD final success of the year. Jimmy Killeen was our star turn in the second half, adding a further six points (two from frees) to his first half tally, with Enda Varley knocking over three, Kevin McLoughlin nabbing two and Trevor Mortimer and substitute Lee Keegan getting one apiece.
As well as ensuring that the inter-county season ended on a bit of a high, today’s match was also noteworthy in that the side was managed on the day by Eoin Sweeney, who has been involved with the Mayo squad in a training capacity for the last number of years. This result today means that the Ballycroy native becomes the only Mayo manager with a 100% win record: that’s going to be a hard act for James Horan to follow.
Mayo: David Clarke; Kevin Keane, Ger Cafferkey, Chris Barrett; Peadar Gardiner, Trevor Howley, Shane Nally; Ger McDonagh, Trevor Mortimer (0-2); Jimmy Killeen (0-8, three frees), Andy Moran (0-1), Kevin McLoughlin (0-2); Enda Varley (0-3), Aidan O’Shea (0-1), Mark Ronaldson (0-1). Subs: Kenneth O’Malley for Clarke (HT), Lee Keegan (0-1) for Nally, Kevin Walsh for Ronaldson, James Burke for Keane.
Great to see the most consistent club forward in Mayo get a full game, and he scores 8 points, 5 from play. Hopefully, he gets a run of games with the new management
Nice day. Great report. The pitch was lopsided also! Kileen, Varley, and Mortimor played well.
Three things WJ.
Sad to hear of the tragic loss in the home county. Regrets to the family of the two men. I remember Ger feeney as a great footballer who should have been one of the all time greats.
Thankfull the FBD has now closed the season for us. Trevor at midfield shows how bad our year was. Thankfully we have the future to look for. Would like to see Killeen get the same chances that Varley and Ronaldson got last season. He deserves it.
Not football as Spailpin has no comment thingymagig so I piggy bank on your site (thanks), but I loved his bit on the poetry and I specially loved the bit about the Simpsons and Seamus Heaney. Cannot quote Heaney but I recall a Grandpa Simpson conversation with Bart.
Bart: “Grandpa, what did you ever do for Springfield?”
Grandpa: “I ran the Irish out of it back in the 1920s”
Leprauchan with pipe: “Begorrah and a fine job you did of it too Sir !”
Who said TV was bad for you.
Very sad to hear the news on Ger Feeney, hell of a bloke and hell of a player.