Roscommon 1-19
Mayo 0-11
And so a bad week for Mayo on the GAA inter-county circuit (ladies excluded ) ended with the Mayo u21 hurlers losing out to Roscommon in the Connacht u21B hurling final by 11 points in Charlestown on Wednesday evening. Mayo did go into an early lead in the game through Stephen Hoban and keep pace with the visitors up till the seventh minute of the contest, but from there on, when the scores were tied at 0-2, each it was all Roscommon.
Wing forward David Dolan was the star of the show for the men in primrose and blue landing eight points over the hour, four of them did come from frees but his accuracy was spot on for the most part during the game.
The killer score for Mayo came in the 12th minute when Dolan’s effort for a point dropped short of the target, Mayo failed to clear their lines and Cormac Kelly was on hand to nip in and make a break towards goal before lashing the sliother to the back of the net from close range. The score at this stage was Ross’ 1-4 Mayo 0-3.
Roscommon put the pedal to the floor for the rest of the half, clipping over seven more minors with a good spread of scores coming from their forward line. Mayo, to their credit, did not throw in the towel and points from Eoin Maddigan and three from Hoban left them trailing by 1-11 to 0-7 at the turn around.
An early goal in the second half was going to be vital for Mayo if they were going to get back into the game, but it failed to come, as the sides went more or less toe to toe with points in the terminal period. Substitute Kenny Feeney did come close on a couple of occasions for Mayo late on, but as they went for goal Roscommon kept chipping over the points to run out comfortable winners in the end.
Mayo: A Butler; C Mitchel, M Healy, A Brennan; R McAndrew, C English, S Markham; E Kenny, E Madigan (0-2 ); AP Barrett, S Hoban (0-6,3f ), B Walsh; B Hunt (0-1 ), A Stenson, G Nolan. Subs: P Delaney, L McDermott, K Feeney(0-2 ), D Gallgher
Roscommon: D O’Dowd; M Carty, M O’Loughlin, M Sommers; J O’Donnell, P Kelly, D Varley; A Moran (0-1 ), D Flaherty; A Purcell (0-1 ), M Miley (0-3 ), D Dolan (0-8,4f ); C Keane (0-2 ), J Coyle (0-2 ), C Kelly (1-2 ). Subs: N Kilroy, D Concannon.
Ref: P McGuire (Sligo )
Martina Nee 13/08/2009
