The first round of the senior football championship took place last weekend and there are no shock results to report. Reigning champions Mullingar Shamrocks got their defence of the title off on the right note with a comfortable 0-12 to 0-7 win over a disappointing Bunbrosna side.
Also in section A, Athlone had too much firepower for Castletown/Finea/Coole/Whitehall. Last year’s intermediate champions have been badly hit with emigration and will struggle to stay up in the absence of some key players.
Maryland helped themselves to a 1-8 to 0-6 win over The Downs, their goal coming from a deflected Kieran Martin effort.
In section B, Castledaly enjoyed the better start but Garrycastle soon reeled them in and went on to record a 2-12 to 1-8 win. Coralstown/Kinnegad made light work of Killucan emerging with 10 points to spare on a score-line of 0-18 to 1-5.
The best match of the round was the meeting of St Loman’s and Tyrrellspass and it was the Saints who took the spoils here kicking an impressive 1-17 to give themselves a five-point victory.
Round two is fixed for the weekend of June 9/10 which is during the Leaving Certificate exams. It seems a bit ridiculous to fix games for the two weeks of the Leaving Cert given that most teams have players who are exam tied.
In Athlone four of our team which lined out against CFCW are sitting their Leaving Cert. One of them was hospitalised until Monday evening following a late tackle and had to have his Irish oral exam rearranged. This would not have been possible had it been a written exam and he would have been looking at having to repeat a full year.
I know that the fixture schedule it is hectic and is impossible to please everybody but surely in this instance common sense should prevail. It is highly unlikely that either of our county teams will be challenging for All-Ireland glory this year so surely there are enough weekends from June 20 to mid-October to get the championships played off.
