Roscommon Gaels U-17 Footballers – Minor Championship Round 1

St Dominic’s 3-04 Roscommon Gaels 2-10

Back Row:  L to R:  Thomas Connolly, Ciaran O'Reilly, Liam Og Corcoran, Cian Reagan, Michael Corcoran, Joshua Lemos, Conor Grogan, Eoghan Carthy, Eoghan Keaveney, Rory Carthy, Thomas King
 
Front Row:  L to R:  Jun Jie Lin, Jack Raftery, Michael Gillooly, Zawyal Khan, John McGuinness, Tommy Naughton, Jack Donnelly, Liam Naughton, Ben Donnellan, Aaron McAteer, Nathan Halligan.

Our U-17 footballers got their championship off to a great start with a hard-earned win over a fancied St Dominic’s on Sat last. This was a very entertaining game with both sides having periods of dominance, but to their credit the Gaels lads held firm to come away with a deserved victory. 

The Gaels lads started the brighter with excellent passing and movement that saw the them run into an early 1-02 to 0-00 lead with scores from Rory Carthy and an excellently worked goal from John McGuinness.  However, Dominic’s raced forward to goal themselves to give life to the game. From the resulting kick out their full forward received a well-placed ball to drill to the net for a second goal in 60 seconds and set the game up as a contest with just 10 minutes gone.  
The Gaels then responded with 4 more unanswered points (Eoghan Carty with 2 of them), John McGuinness and Jack Raftery one each, before the Dom’s responded with a point of their own to leave the half time score at 1-06 to 2-01 in our favour.  

We started the 2nd half well with two points to extend our lead, but the Dominic’s lads then managed to get a hold on the game and reduce the deficit to just one point with another well taken goal. With 15 mins to go the score line stood at 1-09 to 3-02. The one strength the Gaels showed in this game was their ability to respond to conceding a goal and this was evident again when a swift move led to a penalty for our lads which Liam Naughten dispatched to the net to restore a 4-point lead. St. Dominics did cut the lead again to 2 points with 2 quick scores and almost snatched the lead but for an excellent save from Cian Regan.   A pivotal moment in this game as points from Rory Carthy frees seen us close out the game by 2-10 to 3-04. 

Credit to both teams for an entertaining game and no doubt these teams will have a say in the business end of the championship. Well done, Lads​