Day of delight for Dromara

7 October 2020

DROMARA U-13s won a pulsating U-13 Cup final against a very talented An Riocht side in Castlewellan last Sunday.

Dromara started strongly from the throw-in and claimed the first score after two minutes courtesy of Odhrán McCann.

An Riocht registered their first score soon afterwards with a fine point, but were caught cold when a speculative long range drive by Jon Rodgers flew over the head of goalkeeper Shea Clare and into the net.

An Riocht reached immediately with two well taken points, one of them coming from the impressive Declan Fearon to make it 1-1 to 0-3 with 12 minutes gone.

Dromara struck again with a lofted drive from Odhrán McCann, which the goalkeeper could not keep out. Again An Riocht hit back with a free from Cormac McConville and the referee called the first water break with Dromara ahead by three points.

Jon Rodgers, who was lording it all over the pitch, stroked over a beautiful point before An Riocht scored a rasping goal and it was back to a one-point game.

The Dromara full-back line of Joe Kearns, Michael McKenny and Tiernan McCann were being pulled all over the pitch, but were not giving an inch to the strong An Riocht attackers.

There was a similar picture at the other end of the pitch as Dromara’s full-forward line of Lorcan McNeill, James Gould and Alfie Wallace were getting little change from the An Riocht defence. Not long before the break, Jon Rodgers popped up with a point and Odhrán McCann scored two more to leave Dromara ahead by 2-5 to 1-4 at the short whistle.

The second half started with real drama. An Riocht came out all guns blazing and within two minutes they had hit the Dromara net. They then added a point from the excellent Stephen Kearney to go level.

Dromara hit back immediately with the silky footwork of Lorcan McNeill creating a point, and Jon Rodgers chipped in with another score to push Dromara ahead by two points.

Dromara won a free which Rodgers converted before a long pass found James Gould who he twisted and turned and somehow managed to drive the ball into the An Riocht net to give Dromara a six-point lead.

But An Riocht didn’t their heads and just kept surging forward. They were rewarded when the Dromara defenders were unable to prevent a superbly worked goal and another point to claw back the deficit to three points.

Jon Rodgers once more drove forward to shoot another point for Dromara. However, An Riocht won a penalty and up stepped the confident Ryan Campbell to strike the ball high into the roof of the net.

With the score level again, Odhrán McCann went on one of his mazy runs and hit a neat point. Before the water break Joe McAlister was awarded for his trojan efforts by scoring a great point. Again Dromara had grabbed the lead.

Riley Greeves was introduced for Dromara and he quickly added zest to the attack.

Lorcan McNeill and Jon Rodgers added further points to extend Dromara’s lead to four with only a few minutes left.

The icing on the Dromara cake came when the best move of the game rewarded with a goal.

Sean McEvoy collected the ball and slipped a pass back to the attacking Rodgers who hit a perfect 40m pass down the line to Lorcan McNeill. He drew a defender and fisted the ball over to Odhrán McCann who turned and drove an unstoppable shot to the bottom corner of the An Riocht net as Dromara sealed their first ever county title with seven points to spare.

Dromara 4-13

An Riocht 4-6

U-13 CUP FINAL

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