Patient Celtic move ever closer to the Super summit
Castlebar Celtic's Mark Cunningham gets ahead of Manulla’s Cian Benson. Pictures: John Corless
It took Castlebar Celtic all of 34 minutes to break down a stubborn Manulla to finally go top of the Mayo Super League table (for almost 24 hours at least) in the Saturday evening sunshine of Carramore. Once the goal went in, it was going to be a big ask of Manulla, seventh in the table, to achieve something that no other side has been able to do in the league this season – take points off the champions. Manulla will take consolation, however, from a solid performance under almost constant pressure, in the absence of several first teamers, and from a beautifully struck goal from substitute Shea Benson near the end. None of that puts points on the board though, and their tactic of putting the majority of their players behind the ball resulted in their failure to register a single strike on the Celtic goal in the first-half. But they were always unlikely to win this one, and should already have enough points on the board to be safe in this division for another season.
Manulla did well and kept going, even as the goals went in. They played with one up front – Lee Lyons cut an unlikely figure in the number nine shirt, but he gave it a right go, as did Cian Benson on the wing. Once or twice Benson perhaps held on to it too long, but then options were often limited and Mark Cunningham was rampant for Celtic on that side.
For Celtic, it was business as usual. Once they drew blood the question was how many would they score as their relentless march for a third title in-a-row, continued.
“It’s a win achieved through hard work and meticulous preparation,” Castlebar Celtic boss Stevie Gavin said after the final whistle. “Sometimes you have to be patient and your chance will come and that’s what happened tonight. They were hard to break down and we had to be patient. We took our goals then and won it. We have to win the games in hand now.”
Fionn Mahon’s goal was an unlikely one. After the Hoops had battered the Manulla goal for over half an hour, a low strike down the middle from 30 yards out deceived everybody, especially Manulla goalkeeper Donal Murphy. The visitors added two more before half-time to confirm their superiority.
In the opening minutes Dylan Edwards had a wide and Johnny Cocozza headed Mark Cunningham’s cross over, with Fionn Mahon sending one wide, as Celtic piled the pressure on their hosts. Cunningham, who was the outstanding player on display, headed over an Edwards corner, and Eoghan Hughes had a shot saved, all with only twelve minutes gone.
Luke Kelly was ruled offside as he bore down on Murphy’s goal, and Hughes couldn’t get power on his shot before Mark Howley saw his cross rebound off the crossbar.
Mark Cunningham and Luke Kelly also threatened the Manulla goal, before Mahon made the breakthrough. Howley had another cross off the bar before Hughes powered his header to the net from Kelly’s perfectly weighted cross to double the advantage. Four minutes later Hughes poked home an unclaimed ball in the goalmouth to confirm the win. All that remained was to see how may more Celtic would add after the break.
Manulla attacked after the restart and forced a corner-kick but couldn’t get anything from it. At the other end, after Oran Groarke fired a free-kick over, Cocozza’s sweet step-over shot added to Celtic’s tally when he connected with Kelly’s pass. Hughes and Cunningham sent efforts over and then Cocozza pounced when Murphy couldn’t hold Hughes’ shot to get his second and Celtic’s fifth.
Groarke had a volley saved by Murphy and at the other end, Lyons’ shot was tame and didn’t trouble Peter Basquille in the Celtic goal.
Luke Kelly hit the post on 66 minutes but his strike, four minutes later, found the target to make it six.
Shea Benson looked lively up top for Manulla when he came on and one wonders what he was doing on the bench in the first place. He sent a shot straight at the goalkeeper and a few minutes later sent over a neat cross but there was nobody there to finish it, before he scored the best goal of the evening with a superb and confident shot to the corner of the Celtic net from outside the box. Another substitute, Celtic’s returning Ronan O’Boyle, completed the scoring when he connected with a loose ball in a busy goalmouth at the end.
“We are delighted to get the points and finally go top of the league, with games in hand over Westport,” Mark Cunningham told the after the game. “We’re disappointed to concede the goal but it was a wonder strike from Shea Benson so I suppose, we can’t be too disappointed with that. We know we are always going to get a goal and we were stressing unnecessarily before we finally broke them down. They had a lot of players behind the ball so we had to keep working and usually a gap opens and we get in then. We’ve won nothing yet and we have to keep going and keep winning.”
Celtic coach Declan Flynn described it as comprehensive win. “We had good tempo and we worked hard. We’re disappointed to concede the goal near the end,” he said.
Castlebar Celtic had fine performances all over the park. While Cunningham was player of the match, Fionn Mahon was excellent as was Dylan Edwards and Eoghan Hughes. The Bensons caught the eye for Manulla it was a shame they weren’t both on the park at the same time, because Cian’s work-rate and passing might have set up his brother who proved yet again that he is a good finisher. It should also be noted that referee Eric Eaton had a superb game.
