Slick CBS put battling Marist to the sword in the Lennon Cup

Lennon Cup

St. Mary's College 1-7 Christian Brothers 3-17

Outsiders they may be, but John Moylan’s CBS will certainly go close to the Lennon Cup title if they maintain the scoring pattern they set in Tuesday afternoon’s comfortable derby defeat of St. Mary's College in the Marist.

Having led by three-points at half-time, with the breeze at their backs they negotiated the second-half comfortably with goals at the beginning of either half from full-forward Ultan McEnaney blows St. Mary's simply couldn’t recover from.

McEnaney closed the contest with 2-5, 2-4 of which came from play, though, in the likes of Peter McStravick at centre-field accompanied by Luke Gorham and Michael Begley in attack, the 2010 winners possess serious scoring power.

However, their most impressive performer was centre-back Ciarán McGlynn who, by striking a beauty of a point at the beginning of the second-half, illustrated all his qualities from reading breaks to finding targets with precise foot-passes. He’s a supremely competent operator.

The Marist can take some solace from the way they finished the opening-period having found themselves a goal behind with just 25 seconds on the clock. Some nice interchange between Eoin Murphy and Jason Cullen saw the latter transfer the ball to McEnaney who made no mistake.

Trailing 1-4 to a single-point past the first-quarter mark, the hosts fought back with Jamie Farrell’s goal just the tonic they needed required and when Terence Kelly followed it up with a ’45, the gap was down to a solitary score at the break; 1-5 to 1-2.

But McEnaney ended whatever comeback aspirations they held with his second major on the restart, while the impressive Gorham (0-3) and Begley (1-3) boosted the finishing margin along with a brace of spectacular points from McStravick.

There is certainly room for improvement, but, on this evidence, it will take a fine team to overcome the CBS.

Marist College: Cillian Rice; Josh Reilly, Óisín McCabe, Stephen Rylands; Kian McEvoy, Craig Cullen, Terence Kelly (0-1, ’45); Tiernan Weldon, Thomas Rice; Dean Carroll, Jamie Farrell (1-2), Mark Treanor; Graham Stevens (0-1, free), Cian O’Donoghue (0-2), Mark Kilgallon

Subs: Ben Kaginga, Tiernan Moran, Conal Stafford (0-1), Luke Hazzard

CBS: Shane Barron; Lee Byrne, Gavin Farrell, Liam Lawlor; Conor Soraghan, Ciarán McGlynn (0-1), Pádraig Begley; Peter McStravick (0-2), Pádraig Fallon; Kieran Murtagh, Jason Cullen (0-1), Luke Gorham (0-4); Eoin Murphy, Ultan McEnaney (2-5, 0-1 free), Michael Begley (1-4)

Subs: James Prendergast, James Murphy, Fintan Brady, David Ekperouk

Referee: Colin McKenna