Final quarter goals propel Monaleen past Oola in Limerick senior football championship

“WE WERE under pressure right through until our first goal gave us a bit of daylight to settle down. I was very happy with the way the lads closed off the result after that,” was manager Eddie Cosgrave's reaction to Monaleen's 2-13 to 1-9 fourth round victory over Oola in their Irish Wire Products Limerick senior football championship clash in Rhebogue on Thursday night

The third group success has confirmed Monaleen's qualification for the quarter-finals of the county senior football championship at least with one more series of fixtures to come.

Although it took the city side most of the first quarter to overtake an early Oola penalty goal, once the winners found their shape up front, they were able to use the depth in their lineup not only to soak up every effort at a response but also to cement their control of the game with surgical strikes on the break.

The result sees Oola remain on three points from their four group games. 

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When it came down to what mattered, the winners had more options up front. For all of Oola's attempts at containment, they lacked the range of finishers to respond as all but two points of their total came from the boot of Limerick goalkeeper Josh Ryan and, of his total, just a single point was scored from open play.

The Castletroy club, on the other hand, were able to fling the passes across their entire front line until the opening was found and it allowed them to run up enough scores to move them into a lead of substance at crucial phases of the game.

Despite this setback, the East Limerick team are still in a three-cornered hunt with Fr Caseys and Rathleale for the group's last place in the play-offs and will be hoping to build on the composure they showed that kept the result in the melting pot until the final minutes.

Oola found a grip in midfield to apply the early pressure and were rewarded when Mikey O'Brien was fouled as he ran onto a pass inside the square for Ryan to slam home the penalty. However, their next few attacks were smothered by the Monaleen defence and, breaking at speed on the turnover, hit back with points from Steven Kiely and Shane Dolan.

When they followed up with Conal Ó Duinn's equaliser and Alan Nicholas putting them ahead coming up to the quarter mark, it looked as their growing control of the middle third was being reflected on the scoreboard.

However, after Dolan's shot on goal was smothered on the line by Cian McGrath, the East Limerick club shoved their line of contact out to the big arc to close off the shots. Coming up to the break, however, Monaleen found a few cracks to pour through and put some substance to their lead through Tadhg Ó Siochrú's pointed free and Jack Canny's score from play.

It could have been more had Kiely, pouncing on a turnover, not been stopped by the advancing McGrath as he dribbled wide of the challenges but they found some consolation from the next movement with Niall Loughran's point.

Jack Downey's point in reply for Oola broke the sequence only to be met by points from Ó Duinn and Ó Siochrú before Ryan sent over a free on the stroke of half-time to cut the Monaleen lead to 0-9 to 1-2 at half-time.

Pressing froward directly from the restart, Oola's early offensives failed to crack open the opposing defence before they found some traction by drawing a pair of fouls for Ryan to punish as the gap shrank back to two.

There it remained with the clock passing into the final quarter as Ó Siochrú's pointed free was cancelled out by another Josh Ryan score. Kiely and O'Brien then swapped points before O'Brien and Canny had goal shots stopped at opposite ends of the field.

The uneasy equillibrium, punctuated by few stoppages, ended when Canny was fouled as he bore down on goal and Ó Duinn made no mistake with the penalty.

Oola's response was Ryan's monster two-pointer free but, having to force the game into their opponents' half, they left themselves open to breaks which were punished by points from Ó Duinn and Kiely.

Going into injury time, Kiely smashed any hope of a recovery when he ran onto Canny's lay-off to fist to the net and all that remained was for Oola's topscorer Ryan to send over a free just as Johnny Murphy called time.

SCORERS: MONALEEN: Steven Kiely, Conal Ó Duinn (1-0 penalty) 1-3 each, Tadhg Ó Siochrú 0-3 (2 frees), Shane Dolan, Alan Nicholas, Jack Canny, Niall Loughran 0-1 each; OOLA: Josh Ryan 1-7 (1-0 penalty, 0-4 frees, 0-2 2x free), Jack Downey, Mikey O'Brien 0-1 each.

MONALEEN: Dermot Dineen; Conor Carew, Ger Clancy, Andrew Kearney; Jack Doyle, Pádraig Quinn, Darragh Kennedy, Niall Loughran, Steven Kiely; Conal Ó Duinn, Tadhg Ó Siochrú, Paul Crosse; Alan Nicholas, Jack Canny, Shane Dolan. SUBS: Paul Canny for Paul Crosse (half-time), Mark Torpey for Shane Dolan (injured, half-time), Peter Hempenstall for Jack Doyle (51 mins), Luke Murphy for Pádraig Quinn (61 mins), Aaron Kennedy for Steven Kiely (62 mins).

OOLA: Cian McGrath; Fiachra O'Grady, Niall McCormack, Fionn Roche; Paddy Downey , Eoin Fitzgibbon, Colin O'Grady; John O'Callaghan, Michael Ryan; Edddie Stokes, Josh Ryan, Shane O'Grady; Seán Hanley, Mikey O'Brien, Jack Downey. SUB: Tom Ryan for Michael Ryan (48 minutes).

REFEREE: Johnny Murphy (Ballylanders).