St Mary’s returned to haunt UCD again.
This time last week, Con O’Callaghan was finding the net for Dublin against Kerry…
Goal for the Dubs! It's the perfect response from Con O'Callaghan who weaves his magic in front of the travelling support. Watch it live right now on @RTE2 with full highlights on Allianz League Sunday (9.30pm) tomorrow
Live updates: https://t.co/6QJdOefUXC #RTEgaa pic.twitter.com/ohDM4rWN6T— RTÉ GAA (@RTEgaa) February 9, 2019
On Saturday, in the Sigerson Cup semi-finals, O’Callaghan and a highly talented UCD team could not find, buy or fluke a score for 38 minutes.
The Dublin university side lost Liam Silke from their squad, due to club championship duty with Corofin, and they missed him dearly.
While Liam Silke was away, @UCDGAA were knocked out of the @ElectricIreland Sigerson Cup. Not fair on him or his college. pic.twitter.com/mFFNELY3nQ
— GAA JOE (@GAA__JOE) February 16, 2019
St Mary’s Belfast had beaten UCD on their way to Sigerson glory in 2017. Their captain for that winning campaign was Conor Meyler.
That triumph was rightly lauded at the time as ‘The Ranch’ have a student body of around 1,000. With five Armagh men and and four from Tyrone in their starting team, their is a steel rod running through this side.
UCD had no Silke but they could call on O’Callaghan, Conor McCarthy, Evan O’Carroll, Darren Gavin and captain Stephen Coen, who led them to Sigerson glory last year.
Attached are the @UCDGAA & @StMarysSport Football squads ahead of their @ElectricIreland Sigerson Cup semi-final @ 3pm! 📄#FirstClassRivals 👨🏼🎓 #SigersonCup #Allianz #Gaa ↓↓ pic.twitter.com/xltPSDuj9R
— 𝘿𝙪𝙗𝙈𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝𝙏𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙠𝙚𝙧 (@DubMatchTracker) February 16, 2019
UCD would have expected their opponents to come out of the traps at some pace and to not give them an inch in attack and defence – that is a given – but they surely did not expect to go scoreless for the entirety of the first half.
There was a strong wind behind St Mary’s back in the opening 30 minutes but they still took 10 minutes to register a point. After that settler, they found their range and scored four more in a five-minute scoring burst. It was 0-7 to 0-0 at the break.
St Mary’s kept UCD at bay until the 38th minute until they finally conceded a score. UCD made it 0-7 to 0-3 before Mary’s went down the other end to extend their lead to five points. The closest UCD got was 0-9 to 0-7 but Mary’s settled the contest with the final score of the match.
The Belfast outfit march on to the final and it took a mighty effort to get there.
