St. Eunan's are too strong for Ardara

St. Eunan’s secured what in the end was a most comfortable victory over Ardara at O’Donnell Park to stay on track in Group A for the quarter-finals of the Donegal Senior Football Championship.

St. Eunan’s 1-18

Ardara 1-6

In the end the gulf between the sides showed and as expected St. Eunan’s overcame a depleted Ardara in Sunday’s Group A clash played in lovely autumnal conditions at O’Donnell Park.

For Ardara, this spells the end of the road in terms of qualification for the quarter-finals – they still have to play Gaoth Dobhair – while St. Eunan’s face a potentially tricky assignment with their final group game being away to St. Michael’s.

Ardara acquitted themselves well in the first half and only trailed by two points at the break but the loss through injury of Tomas Boyle before the break and then the influential Peter Oliver McIntyre and captain Conor Classon in the second half meant an already difficult task became just too much to turn around.

And against their more experienced and higher ranking opponents the result was never really in any doubt once St. Eunan’s got their goal to leave them ahead by six with over a quarter of the game still to go.

Ardara began positively with a points from play from Gareth Concarr from play and a Paul Watters free.

St. Eunan’s responded with a trio of points courtesy of Rory Carr, Brian McIntyre and Conor O’Donnell as they moved into the lead.

But Ardara were boosted by a goal from John Ross Molloy at the end of a sweeping move that saw him pick his spot and fire the ball into the net with aplomb.

However, another O’Donnell point and a Carr free put the Cathedral Town brought the sides level with 12 minutes gone.

Robbie Adair and James Kelly exchanged points (the latter’s effort for Eunan’s going over in off the post) to leave the sides level for the last time in the game.

And then after a score-drought of more than 10 minutes the home side finished the half with the best scores to date as Carr, with a fine long-range free, and a lovely curling effort from veteran Rory Kavanagh, left them with the two-point cushion at the interval, 0-8 to 1-3.

The men in black and amber stretched the lead out to four points with Brian McIntyre and Caolan Ward, with a decent effort from an acute angle, putting them 0-10 to 1-3 ahead before Concarr got a free six minutes into the second half.

Ardara scored only two more points after them, both frees from Concarr, as the tide turned completely in Eunan’s favour.

O’Donnell got a point from play which was quickly followed by a surge forward from Niall O’Donnell who buried his shot into the bottom of the corner for a goal that effectively put the issue beyond doubt and left the hosts in front, 1-11 to 1-5.

After that it was really a case of just how many scores Richard Thornton’s side could add on.

Éoin McGeehin pointed as did Kelly whose initial effort produced a fine blocking save from Ciaran Gildea while in between Niall O’Donnell made no mistake from a 13 metre free.

The aforementioned O’Donnell tagged on three more scores while Brian McIntyre got the final point, from play, to leave it 1-18 to 1-6 in favour of St. Eunan’s.

Matthew Maher of Ardara and Brian McIntyre of St. Eunan’s were both given yellow cards late on following an altercation near the touchline, but overall it was a fairly free-flowing encounter.

This would have been chalked in as a home win by Eunan’s when the draw was made; the challenge next week in Dunfanaghy against St. Michael’s will surely be considerably greater.

St. Eunan’s: Shaun Patton; Conor Parke, Conor Morrison, Caolan Ward (0-1); Aaron Deeney, Rory Kavanagh (0-1), Daragh Mulgrew; Conor O’Donnell (0-3), Sean McGettigan; Eamonn Doherty, James Kelly (0-2), Brian McIntyre (0-3); Niall O’Donnell (1-4, 2f), Rory Carr (0-3f), Éoin McGeehin (0-1). Subs: Peter McEniff for Kavanangh (33 mins), Conall Dunne for Carr (47 mins), Jamie Doherty for Kelly (54 mins), Conor Moore for Deeney (58 mins), Sean Ryan for Mulgrew (60 mins).

Ardara: Ciaran Gildea; John Ross  Molloy (1-0), Matthew Maher, Johnny Herron; Lorcan O’Donnell, Brendan Boyle, Robbie Adair (0-1); Shane O’Donnell, Conor Classon; Paul Watters (0-1f), Jack Brennan, Tomas Boyle; Johnny Sweeney, Peter Oliver McNelis, Gareth Concarr (0-4. 3f). Subs: Kevin Whyte for T. Boyle (27 mins), Peter McHugh for McNelis (40 mins), Eoghan Harkin for Classon (52 mins), Matthew Sweeney for Whyte (54 mins).

Referee: Greg McGroary (Four Masters).