St Mary's, Convoy coast to victory against sorry Robert Emmets

St Mary's, Convoy boosted their late push for a promotion shot at moving out of Division 3 with a facile 28-point drubbing of basement boys Robert Emmets.

St Mary's, Convoy 6-15 Robert Emmets 0-5

By the midpoint in this lopsided affair, the Castlefin men had already found themselves 22 points adrift. Indeed Liam Sweeney's side didn’t register a single score in a sorry first period. 

With so much one-way traffic, it was no surprise that the hosts found the net four times in the opening stanza as Pauric Gordon, John Toye, Patrick Dolan and player/manager Laurence McMullan all raised green flags. 

Prior to the first of those three-pointers on 15 minutes, McMullan, John Doherty twice and Toye twice, all registered overs as St Mary’s eased into a nine-point lead by the close of the first quarter. 

Toye and Dolan clipped subsequent frees while Ciaran Dolan also got on the scoresheet to bring his side’s tally to 1-8 ten minutes out from the break. Before Toye netted his side’s second goal, Patrick Dolan and Gavin Sweeney added further points with Robert Emmets yet to get a shot off in anger. 

They finally did make inroads into the Convoy defensive third and winning a free, Eoin McMenamin looked like he’d finally got his side on the board. Indeed it went on the scoreboard for a short period. 

But cruelly, the effort was stroked off at the break as it was explained that the referee overruled the sympathetic umpire at the foot of the post that had tried to do Castlefin a solid favour. 

Still, St Mary’s showed little to no mercy in the final exchanges of the half as centre half back Doherty landed his third and Dolan and McMullan rattled back-to-back goals to leave it 4-11 to 0-1 at the changeover.  

As the skies opened, things improved slightly for the visitors when matters restarted and Robert Emmets would break their scoring duck in the second period with McMenamin nailing five fine frees. 

Still, the floodgates remained open at the other end and in between another flurry of points, the likes of Gavin Sweeney and Toye managed to add fifth and sixth goals before the end. 

St Mary’s, Convoy scorers: John Toye 2-3,2f; Ciaran Dolan 0-2; Gavin Sweeney 1-1,1f; Anthony Browne 0-2; Laurence McMullan 1-1; Patrick Dolan 1-2; Pauric Gordon 1-1; John Doherty 0-3. 

Robert Emmets scorers: Eoin McMenamin 0-5,5f.

St Mary's, Convoy: Emmet Doherty; Niall Sweeney, Shaun Browne, Keelan Gillen; Matthew Coyle, Ciaran Dolan, Oran Patterson; Cormac Mulrain, Pauric Gordon; Patrick Dolan, Laurence McMullan, Anthony Browne; Gavin Sweeney, John Toye, Ciaran Dolan.

Subs: Michael Ayton for Mulrain (33, inj), Paul O’Leary for McMullan (43), Niall Sweeney for M Coyle (49), Michael Patton for Patterson (54). 

Robert Emmets: Simon McMenamin; Oran Farrell, Jordan Tourish, Dean Hughes; Conor  Dalton, Daniel Foy, Marcus Curran; Eoin McMenamin, Neil Mulcahy; Reece Gallagher, Darren McBride, Ciaran Dalton; Rory Dalton, Kevin McColgan, Ryan McGirr.

Subs: Daniel Dalton for McBride (19), Owen Harran for Farrell (21). 

Referee: Trevor Maloney (Buncrana).