Semi Final: St Enda's Omagh V Scotstown

St Enda’s, Omagh (Tyrone) 1-12 V Scotstown (Monaghan) 2-8

Tyrone champions Omagh St Enda’s held on to take their place in the semi-final of the Thomas Devlin Motors Ulster U21 Club Football Championship against Scotstown in a game that hung in the balance until the dying seconds.

Scotstown dominated the opening quarter at Creggan yesterday and led 0-3 to no score after 11 minutes. It took St Enda’s 19 minutes to register their first score but it began a run of 1-6 without reply to give the Tyrone men a six-point cushion at the break.

Mark Treanor (0-2) and Paul Sherlock put the Monaghan men ahead, but the sides were level on 23 minutes when Ronan O’Neill, Damien McGloin and Aaron Grugan all raised flags.

The game’s first goal arrived on 27 minutes when a high ball into O’Neill was laid off to the onrushing Christopher Gallagher to fire past Rory Beggan between the Scotstown posts.

Omagh dominated the remainder of the half with the excellent Conor Grugan completing the first half scoring with a superb effort for a 1-6 to 0-3 half-time lead.

On 48 minutes the sides were all square. The Scotstown comeback began five minutes into the second half when James Hamill’s long range effort dipped under the Omagh bar, but there was nothing fortunate about Shane Carey’s major 10 minutes later.

A superb ball from Mark Corrigan found Carey who turned his man to fire past Ryan Clarke to level at 2-6 to 1-9. Two quickfire scores from Conan Grugan and Barry Tierney gave Omagh the advantage, but Rory Beggan’s free with five minutes on the clock left a point between the sides. Aaron Grugan added a point for Omagh and although Kieran Hughes cut the gap again with a minute on the clock, Scotstown were unable to force extra time. Omagh will now face Cullyhanna in the semi-final.

“We had to work very hard for the result and we’re delighted to get over the line, it stretched our bench to say the least. Hopefully we’ll improve from that and we’ll need to, at the end we were hanging on,” said Omagh boss Emmett Gallagher.

Omagh: R Clarke; K Brannigan, D Bradley, S Mullan; C McLaughlin, B Tierney (0-1), D Teague; C Grugan (0-2), T Gallagher; R McBride, S O’Neill (0-1), A Grugan (0-3); C O’Neill, C Gallagher (1-0), R O’Neill (0-3, 0-2f)

Subs: S Canavan (0-1) for T Gallagher, D McGloin (0-1) for C O’Neill, N Brannigan for D Teague, C Meyler for C Gallagher

Scotstown: R Beggan (0-1f); D Caulfield, C Treanor, D McCarey; M Corrigan, E Maguire, A Carbin; S Sherry, J Hamill (1-1); P Sherlock (0-1), M Treanor (0-2), S Carey (1-1); O Heaphey, K Hughes (0-2, 0-1f), C Caulfield

Subs: D McArdle for C Treanor, S Mohan for P Sherlock

Referee: C Brannigan (Down)

Match Report by John Martin

Photos by Eunan McAteer