Brilliant Blues blow helpless Gaels away
Darragh Beirne (pictured) and James Shaughnessy both struck 1-2 for Claremorris.
Claremorris continued their hunt for promotion to Division 1A with a comprehensive 11-point victory over the Mayo Gaels on a wet night on Saturday. The Royal Blues were dominant throughout and put their counterparts to the sword.
It was Gaels who opened the scoring from the boot of Brian Morrin which was quickly washed away by Claremorris talisman James Shaughnessy.
More points were traded from both sides with some outstanding long-range efforts flying over the black spot. The impressive Darragh Beirne was a thorn in the Gaels side all night and floated a delightful score over on seven minutes and followed up with another on 14 minutes.
Cathal Joyce proved to be a wrecking ball inside and converted a beautiful 45’ over in the greasy conditions which Conor McGuinness backed up the Claremorris dominance with a bomb from distance to leave the scores 0-5 to 0-2 after 19 minutes.
Conrad Dixon ventured forward in a 40-yard dash and split the uprights in magnificent fashion.
The first major of the match was scored at the town end. The Claremorris kicking game paid dividends as Cathal Joyce gathered a ball inside and got his shot away which was blocked down and broke kindly to Shaughnessy who palmed calm fully into an empty net.
Shaughnessy followed up his goal with a trademark kick from 45 yards which sailed over. Joyce drew a halt to the first half proceedings with a score to leave nine between the sides at the interval to the advantage of the home team.
The energetic Paul Gilmore got in on the scoring on 36 minutes before, another Claremorris break saw the kicking game executed to perfection with Joyce receiving and offloading to Stephen McGreal who crashed home another blow to the Gaels on 38 minutes.
The Gaels were not to throw in the towel and landed a peach from 40 yards from Ruairi Keane. Claremorris were in no mood to ease off the throttle and Beirne rounded off his majestic performance with a well taken strike after good work from Matthew Macken on 40 minutes to leave the scores at 3-10 to 0-4.
Conor Diskin was introduced as the Blues began to empty their bench and the forward flashed a goal attempt past the post.
The Gaels kept pushing for scores and were rewarded for their perseverance as Ronan Commons collected a pass and buried his effort past Alvin McCallig on 48 minutes.
John Gallagher stroked over a free before McGreal added two more points to his tally and McGuinness capped off his brilliant work in the middle of the park with his third of the night.
The Gaels landed the final two points of the night through John Gallagher and David Quinn.
